Where Walk the Madmen
by ShamelessLiar
Summary: Dark days last longer for some than others. A string of attacks breaks out in the year following the war's end, and Hermione is bent on catching the culprits. There's someone who could help her - someone who had the sense to build up an immunity to snake venom - but to reach him, Hermione will have to travel a frightening road and brave a world of dreams and memories. EWE
1. Chapter 1

AN: Okay, so this story has been bugging me. I started it about a decade ago and I _keep_ thinking about it lately because it isn't finished. It isn't finished and I haven't put out any Harry Potter fanfic and that's a ridiculous oversight because I _love_ Harry Potter fanfic. This story (or what I have of it) was originally posted on Ashwinder. I hope you like it!

Further note: I've moved away from HG/SS, because while I felt fine with the age gap as an early-20s person, I feel a lot less comfortable with it as a 30s person and (especially) as a teacher. So... not sure how all this is gonna end. The M rating might be overshooting, so smut-seekers take note!

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Hermione Granger tightened her grip on the bag that hung from her shoulder as she made her way up the stairwell of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, She could feel the straight edge of her notebook through the canvas and clutching to that firmness gave her a boost of confidence and a sense of defined purpose. She would simply chat with her mother about the items scribbled on her list and, this way, they could completely avoid the subject of Hermione's father.

It would work. It had to.

As she pushed her way up the last few steps to the landing, the door opened and Neville Longbottom's lanky form bobbed into view. His round face seemed a bit sad and distant and he was shoving some small object into his pocket. When he caught sight of her, though, his face brightened pleasantly.

"Morning, Hermione."

Hermione smiled with the modest cheer that she lately held in reserve for special occasions. "Good morning, Neville. I haven't seen you for a while. How have you been?"

"Good, good." His small but easy smile reminded Hermione of the last time she had seen him; he had hugged her and smiled the same way at his Gran's funeral more than a year ago. _Funny she'd wait until the war was over and done with. Not even the Reaper could out-stubborn my old Gran!_

His brown eyes were dryer at present than they had been then, but Neville still had the look of someone well-accustomed to sorrow. It struck Hermione that he had perhaps always had it, that she had only recently learned to identify just what it was.

As if to spite his own sad eyes, Neville tugged the collar of his dark green professional robes and his smile warmed a bit. "I made Assistant Botanist at Herbatius Herb's Geenhouse up in Darlington. Still doesn't pay much, but I enjoy the work. What about you, Hermione? Did you take the Arithmantic Association by storm?"

"By storm… not exactly, no."

It took a moment for her to remember it, but she had in fact met briefly with the Association nearly a year ago. Before...

Hermione forced a smile, snapping the attention of her disciplined mind back to the subject. "It turns out they do little more than bicker over the finer points of formula development. From what I could tell, there was no opportunity for research, no new knowledge to explore, and no interest in expanding experimentation into multi-disciplinary pursuits." She offered a short laugh, partly at the Association and partly at Neville's expression, which was already glazing over. "Bit of a dull crowd, actually."

Neville loosed a surprised chuckle at that. "That's a right damning sentence coming from an avid fan of _Hogwarts; A History_. But then, it certainly wasn't easy for me to settle down again after the war. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you… Well, I've heard rumors that you…" His smile guttered and he peered at Hermione with the question, the serious one, furrowing his brow. "Have you caught them yet?"

Hermione abandoned her efforts at smiling and squeezed the edge of her notebook through her bag as she spoke. "I've been researching the spell residues they left behind at the latest site, but I'm running out of libraries to turn to."

"The latest site? You mean they attacked again?" Neville's face registered shock, perhaps even a little fear.

"There have been a number of incidents over the past year. Not all violent and none so severe as… as that first, but there is a definite similarity within the lingering aura afterwards."

"Hermione, I had no idea. There hasn't been any mention of rogue Death Eaters in _The Prophet_ … I suppose it's too much to hope that they just didn't know about it?"

Hermione only nodded. Better not to get started about the number of letters she had written this year, to _The Daily Prophet_ as well as various branches and levels of the Ministry – all of which had been answered with polite coddling and run-arounds. "I never thought I'd say it, but it's a pity Luna's father gave up on _The Quibbler_."

Neville seemed capable of only shaking his head slowly. Finally, he forced out two words. "The Ministry?"

Hermione couldn't help it; her lips thinned into a tight frown. "Aurors handle the crime scenes, but there is no ongoing investigation. The Minister would rather keep his administration's hands clean of the war, now that it's over. I suppose I can't blame him. Wizarding Britain has come out of a dark time and it's right that people should celebrate and be happy."

Neville shook his head, incredulous. "Not if people are still dying."

"People aren't dying, Neville. One person died in that first attack and, ever since, it's been little more than harassment and mysteries. Bad memory charms, long-term hexes, vandalism, a couple of Muggles disappearing for a week and reappearing with no memory of what happened… Just enough ugliness to make people uncomfortable - if the news even makes it into _The Prophet_ , that is."

"Well… why haven't you contacted the Defense Association, Hemione? Most of us would be more than happy to help, you know."

She watched Neville shuffle his hands within his pockets for a second. He almost looked hurt. Hermione smiled. "Everyone is off living their lives by now, Neville. Even Harry and Ron are off at Auror training most of the time. Besides, I'm not sure how you or anyone else could help me, anyway. All I do is study and search for more books on magical residue to read. I'm not sure that anyone else could even follow my notes – they've gotten so convoluted."

"I guess you have a point." Neville placed one large palm on her shoulder. His warmth soaked through the fabric of her blouse and robes and Hermione smiled up at him. It was no wonder he had such a gift for plants; the man had kindness in his touch. "If anybody can figure out a puzzle, Hermione, it's you."

She didn't say it, but she thought it. _It rather has to be, doesn't it?_

"Thanks Neville. I should probably get in to see my mum."

He removed his hand and replaced it in his pocket, his cheeks perhaps a bit pink. "Right. I'll see you later, Hermione." He took two steps down and then turned back to her. "You'll owl me if you figure out a way that I can help, right?"

Hermione smiled, the brightest she had in a long while. "Without fail."

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The ward was the same as it was every week. The light from the tall windows made the white walls glow and cast across the gossamer bed curtains peacefully. At the same time, the place reeked of saccharine medicinal potions and the biting, coppery scent of sanitation spells. The floor was laid with tile like squares of polished bone and the beds were lined up like graves.

Residents tottered about between their beds and the plush armchairs near the reception desk, including Neville's mother, who was cooing over a plastic baby doll. The nurse was speaking softly with Mr. Longbottom and only spared Hermione a glance and a familiar nod of greeting. Hermione strode slowly down the ward, passing other patients - including Gilderoy Lockhart, who was still hard at work perfecting his connected letters.

Peering through a crack in the curtains of the last bed of the row, Hermione found her mother sleeping peacefully and breathed a sigh of relief. She had a chance to prepare. Pulling back the curtain a few feet, Hermione entered the small space and set her bag down beside the visitor's chair – her chair. She snapped the wand out of her sleeve with a practiced sleight of hand and worked some slow magic on the drooping flowers at her mother's bedside.

They weren't actually flowers. In fact, they were paintings of flowers made of equal parts oil and magic. It was a hobby Hermione had picked up from her father, who had so loved painting large vases of lilies or single stalks of orchids or tulip poplar branches in bloom. He had of course painted on canvas, but Hermione saw this (as many other habits of hers) as an opportunity to practice wandwork.

With careful strokes, Hermione shifted the blues to one side, stretched and darkened the greens, lightened red to pink, and finished by freckling the throats of the Asiatic Lilies with purple. They were not as beautifully rendered as her father's paintings had been, but Hermione reasoned that she would grow better with practice. For today, it would do.

Returning her wand to its place, Hermione sat quietly and tugged the notebook from her bag. She reviewed the talking points she had laid out for herself, determined to be prepared this time. Again and again she read through the topics, then recited them mentally while staring at the crack in the curtain she had left open, then expanded upon as many of the topics as she could until her head was full of her side of the oncoming conversation.

She glanced at her mother. The woman's mouth was open slightly, from time to time twitching in one corner, as if in a nascent smile. Hermione sighed and smiled herself.

"Alright Mister Snape. Time for breakfast."

Wide-eyed, Hermione peered again out of the open curtain and watched as the nurse drew back the dividers of the bed across from her mother's. There, lying perfectly still, was Severus Snape.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I'm lightly editing these chapters as I go, because 20-somthing year old me liked to use a lot more words than were necessary to get the point across. She also liked to reuse the same words over and over, so I've supplied a more diverse selection. (Readers, never feel bad about being 30+. It just makes you better at basically everything.)

Thanks for reading - and reviewing, you great reviewers!

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Snape looked awful, though it took Hermione a moment of intense scrutiny to identify just what gave her that impression. His skin was not so pallid as it had been during her time as a student and in fact had a healthy glow to it, likely a result of improved nutrition. His hair, left to the capable care of St. Mungo's Finest, was trimmed to the level of his jaw and combed back against the pillow, effectively clear of the white scars gnarling his throat. Even the calm expression on his face lent him a seeming peacefulness that wiped years from his appearance. In fact, had it not been for that singular, wrong _something_ , the man would have looked better than he had in years.

Then, he opened his eyes.

For an instant, Hermione was afraid that she had been caught peeping. Excuses bubbled at the back of her throat until she noticed that those black eyes were not glittering with the intensity she remembered. In fact, they were not glittering at all. They were unfocused and seemed to flutter away from things as quickly as they lighted on them, as if they followed the path of some butterfly, visible only to him.

"It's oatmeal, today, Mr. Snape. Open up, now."

The nurse, having seated herself on the edge of the bed, was slowly approaching the wizard's face with a spoonful of off-white paste. Hermione almost expected to see his expression sour, to hear him snarl some of his usual nastiness. When his mouth simply opened and his eyes continued their lazy journey around the room, it felt as if a cold brick had Apparated into Hermione's belly. She knew now what was wrong with this healthy-looking wizard.

Snape's eyes were open, but Snape was not home.

There had been a piece in _The Prophet_ several months ago, run under some insipid headline like 'The Sorry Story of Severus Snape.' Apart from rubbing the reader's nose in the ex-professor's lifetime of unsavory acts, it reported that Healers believed he had developed a high level of immunity to a great many toxins. It went on to speculate that Snape's immunity had saved him from the snakebite, only to then interfere with the various healing spells cast upon him, resulting in his mind being wiped clean as an infant's.

Hermione had always suspected that theory was rubbish, but now she knew for a fact. Snape didn't look like a newborn. He looked blank. Empty.

She had known upon reading that the entire article was based on rumors and assumptions, but that may have been due to her personal bias against that beetle-brained harridan, Rita Skeeter. There had also been some talk of Skeeter writing Snape's biography, but Hermione imagined the woman (in an uncharacteristic display of either courtesy or caution) must be waiting for Snape to actually kick off, first.

She watched with brow furrowed as the man took another bite of oatmeal, seeming to swallow without chewing. His eyes rolled past her, not only failing to recognize her as a familiar face, but seeming not to see any face at all.

Hermione frowned. Notebook still in her lap, she reached down into her bag for a Muggle ink pen. In a rush born of the fear of lost ideas, she sat up, yanked off the cap, pressed the ball point into the page, and scribbled out half of a word before her mother bolted upright in bed.

"Donald!"

Startled by the fear in her mother's voice, Hermione dropped everything and leapt to her feet, wand drawn. Her heart banging in her chest, she followed her mother's wide-eyed gaze to the partly open curtain. All she saw was the nurse peering back at her.

"Everything alright?" the nurse asked, genuinely concerned.

With a brief glance at her mother, who was now sitting perfectly still, Hermione nodded and offered a tiny smile. "Sorry, Gwen. Bad dream."

The nurse nodded in sympathy and turned back to Snape, spoon at the ready.

Hermione took a deep breath and tucked her wand away, then sat on the edge of her chair, leaning close to her mother's bedside. The slender woman still had not moved and her blue eyes held the unsettling stillness of marbles.

"Dad's not here, Mum." She paused a beat, scraped her bottom lip against her incisors. "He's stepped out."

"Has he?" Jane Granger's eyes softened into life with a flicker of movement, then revived fully as they fell on her daughter. "Hermione, love, be a dear and find my glasses. Your dad's been hiding them from me again."

"Sure, Mum." Hermione set her voice into Business Tone as she plucked the sensible steel-framed bifocals from the bedside table – where the nurse always left them.

It was really best to just play along. She'd tried breaking the news to Jane in the beginning, but only in the beginning. Jane's mind had worked so hard to insulate the memory of the attack, along with the shattering grief and horror she had endured. To remind her of it was an act of selfish cruelty - because it had quickly become clear that Jane Granger was never going to stop forgetting. She would rise every day looking for him, waiting for him to appear. She would never remember just why she was in the hospital, though she was fully aware that her chronic pain was a part of it.

"Thank you, dear." Jane tucked her glasses neatly into place and turned her familiar blue eyes – alive again and full of love – on her only child. "Now tell me, how are things?"

And with that, Hermione was off. Ignoring the notebook that was still splayed on the floor, she scudded down her mental list and left a great red check next to each topic accomplished. Her mother easily held up her end of the conversation. Shortly after the nurse, Gwen, brought in her breakfast, Jane sat up and posed comments and questions between bites of toast. In fact, Hermione began to notice that, as Jane came more fully awake (and polished off a potion and her first cup of tea) the tides began to turn and control rapidly slipped from the witch's grasp.

Finally, the cunning older woman wrestled the conversation to her favorite topic. "So," she began, her smile betraying the way she relished this victory, "when are you and Ron going to get married and have those grandchildren I've been waiting for?"

"Oh Mum, I've told you I want to do something more than just have children." Hermione fought the whine out of her tone and continued in a more dignified manner. "Besides, Ron is far too busy with his training right now and I'll kindly remind you for the fifty-first time that _you_ have been warning me off boys since I was twelve in the interest of my academic career."

 _En guarde!_

Jane waved a hand. "Oh, pish posh, Hermione! That was when you were in school. You've a job now and your dad and I aren't getting any younger. You should have them while we're still spry enough to lend a hand. Let your old Mummy and Daddy take care of those babies whilst you're out pursuing your full potential." Jane was smiling, lacing her fingers together in her lap. To Hermione's narrowed eye, she looked almost like a self-satisfied spider, perched atop a bound-up and struggling moth.

 _Touche…_

Hermione frowned as she searched for a proper counter for that argument. It was precisely this sort of fiendish composition of guilt, logic, and flattery that made these discussions with her mother such a challenge. A beloved challenge, but no less difficult for that.

She must have had quite the pained look on her face, since Jane heaved a great sigh while looking at her and said, "Oh, now. I know I shouldn't pressure you, love, but… I've felt rather… old of late. Perhaps it's this place. I feel as if I've been here for years." Jane's blue eyes fell to the bedspread, her expression tired and almost stunned.

Hermione took the chance to look at her mother more closely and, to her distress, she had to admit that Jane truly did look old. She was drawn and silver-haired where once she had been bright and blonde and the only wrinkles upon her had been the distinguishing marks from her smile.

Insidious, the thought crept into her mind; _What if she's right? What if the curse damage wears her body down in the next few years and, finally, one day, she's just not there anymore?_ And then, crueler still, _How selfish I've been!_

Jane was by that time gazing at the flowers at her bedside, a faint smile playing across her lips. In Hermione's mind, she heard her mother's voice repeating the soft affection of last week. _Donald just seems to get better and better every day. He's always learning new tricks with his paints._

In her throat, a hot knot was tightening.

As suddenly as she did everything, Jane took a deep breath, looked Hermione in the eye, and smiled brightly. "It's been lovely visiting with you dear, but I'm getting rather hungry and I'm sure you have better things to do than watch me nibble the day away. Send the nurse over on your way out, won't you?"

Still feeling rather dumbstruck, Hermione gathered her things, kissed her mother's cheek, and shuffled out of the curtained-off space, only to find someone waiting for her. She forced a smile, "Morning Gwen."

"Hullo Hermione. Had at you again, has she?" the nurse asked in a low voice loaded with sympathy.

"I suppose she has. She wants her lunch already." Hermione checked her watch and was surprised to see that it was already half-past noon.

"No surprise there. Jane has maintained an excellent appetite for seven consecutive months, now."

Gwen was a tall witch with the sort of cheery face that could make a person feel a bit more optimistic about most anything. It was rather like looking up into the face of a sunflower. Hermione had wondered on occasion whether the nurse had a little dryad blood, so enchanting was her mellow presence. Presently, though, her mind drifted toward other things.

"I notice you have a new patient." She gestured toward Snape's bed, where the curtains had again been drawn shut.

Gwen smiled faintly. "Yes. St. Mungo's has had a funding cut this year, so the Veteran's Wing had to be closed." At Hermione's startled blink, the nurse intensified her smile. "Don't worry, Hermione. The Veteran's Wing only housed a few patients. We are more than capable of taking them on comfortably here in Spell Damage."

"I don't doubt the abilities of your staff, Gwen. I'm just surprised that the Veteran's Wing didn't even last two years." Hermione smiled briefly, for an instant trying to gentle what might come off as judgment, but then abandoned the effort. No wonder Neville had seemed distraught. His parents weren't supposed to be living in this ward anymore. Brow slightly furrowed, she pushed on. "That ward was intended to honor those who made sacrifices for our society. It is highly disappointing that St. Mungo's would so easily fold to the winds of politics."

Gwen smiled her calm smile. "Of course. Far be it from me to state my own opinions on policy – I'm just a Mediwitch – but times are changing, Ms. Granger. St. Mungo's Board must adapt Hospital policy to reflect the needs of Wizarding Britain." She shook her head gently, like some oak waving under a high wind. "There is no malice behind this change, only necessity."

For a few long moments, Hermione stared back at her, fighting to control her own hostility. She knew that her frustrations stemmed from her mother's state and the current political situation more than from Gwen's gentle reminder of the way things were, but knowing this did not make her feel differently. Sensing that her ire was fading away under the nurse's soothing gaze, Hermione found at least some consolation. Her theory about Gwen's ancestry had just won more merit.

Deciding that a change of subject was the best course, Hermione glanced back towards Snape's curtained-off bed. "Out of curiosity… Pr- Mr. Snape clearly did develop an immunity to the venom of the snake that bit him. Why hasn't he made a full recovery?"

Gwen seemed to consider something briefly, then sighed. "Hermione, it is against St. Mungo's Contract of Confidential Care for me to discuss Mr. Snape's condition with you." Her mouth curled up at one corner and she went on in a low tone. "I can, however, tell you that the venoms of most snakes are neurotoxins and that developing immunity to a magical neurotoxin is considered medically impossible for reasons outlined in _Rasputin's Reptilian Resource_."

Recognizing a peace offering when she heard it, Hermione finally found it in her to smile warmly back. "Thanks, Gwen. I'll look into that."

She made her way out of the hospital with her head bowed slightly in thought. Several times, she had to dodge out of the way of other patients and staff members at the last minute before collision, earning a few scowls and snapped reprimands. None of this was quite enough to draw Hermione back from the bubbling stew in her mind - one of spell residues, magical neurotoxins, and babies.


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione spent that Saturday afternoon just as she had spent nearly every Saturday afternoon since the end of the war; she sat at a table with a large tome pinned down with her left index and middle finger while her right hand scribbled notes with a Snap-Proof Quill.

Her hair was twisted behind her head into a tight bun, as she was prone to keeping it during her studies of late, and she sat forward on the edge of her chair with both balls of her feet planted against the floor. Her right leg bounced slightly as she dragged the fingers of her left hand down each page in her reading. That leg would do its anxious dance until she came upon something particularly interesting, at which point she would unconsciously stop all movement in order to fiercely scribble out her notes and citations.

This was how she had found all the answers before. Basilisks, Triwizard challenges, Horcruxes… all of the puzzles that had compounded in her young life had been solved with these same tools. And this was how she would solve her current puzzle as well.

It was not always the same library. For some months after the attack, Hermione had plundered the Hogwarts library – with the blessing of Headmistress McGonagall, of course. Meanwhile, Harry had encouraged her to keep her room at Grimmauld Place and, the other option being her parents' house, Hermione had gladly taken him up on it.

Once she had exhausted the applicable resources at Hogwarts, the witch beset the small household library, which had suffered horribly in the Doxy Wars of 1995. Books were stacked flat on the shelves or crammed too tightly together in no particular order – it was absolute barbarism. In the quiet September week after Harry and Ron had left for their first Auror Training, Hermione had catalogued and cross-referenced the entire library. She could not abide by such feckless disorder.

That was where she studied now and, apart from the scratch of her quill, the old house sat silent in its dust and loneliness. With the curtains open, afternoon sunlight poured into the room, illuminating clouds of dust that rose in sparkling whorls each time the witch turned a page.

The silence was broken when Ron's voice came to her, shouting up from the kitchen.

"Hermione! Are you home?"

"Yes. Coming." Despite the words, her quill flew to complete the sentence at hand.

"Hello?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Her voice rose from a grumble to a shout as she sprang from her chair and stalked out of the library. "Yes, Ron, I'm coming!"

She found his head in the hearth, grinning up at her. "Any luck with the books?" He looked pointedly at her right hand and Hermione peered down, surprised to see she still gripped the quill.

With a deep sigh, she let go of some of the tension and smiled at Ron's head. "No major breakthroughs." Taking a moment to Banish the quill back to the library – she didn't want to forget it downstairs – Hermione set about making tea. "Are you coming through or are you just going to sit there spitting out ashes?"

"Well, since you're offering…" Ron's head withdrew from the embers, only to be replaced by a green flare and the whole wizard hopping out onto the hearth rug. Grinning, he brushed soot from his Senior Auror Trainee robes and sidled closer to Hermione, watching as she gathered some biscuits on a plate, glanced at him, and then piled a few more on top. "Ah, 'Mione, you do know the key to my heart."

He moved close behind her and slipped his hands around her waist, pressing the length of his body against her back. Hermione could feel the heat of his breath on the back of her ear as he pressed his cheek against her bunned-up hair. Against her bum, she could feel the hot beginnings of his arousal.

The position was familiar. Many times in the last year, she had escalated the situation from this point by rubbing back against him or turning around for kisses. Today, though, the tug on her hair wasn't comfortable and that little bit of pain brought her frustration bubbling back to the surface.

Hermione turned in his arms and pressed the plate of biscuits into his hands. Ron, to his credit, only took the plate and smiled at her ruefully. "Tough day?"

With a small, affectionate smile, Hermione turned back to the counter to collect the tea. "I've certainly had better. I'm afraid I've hit a wall these past few weeks. Dining room?"

Ron led the way, speaking over his shoulder as he went. "What do you mean, a wall?"

"Well…" As she took her seat, Hermione frowned, struggling to remember. "What have I told you about the spell residues so far?"

With the look of one put squarely on the spot, Ron slowly added an obscene amount of sugar to his tea, stirring the brew slowly. "Uh… I remember that you said that there were some charms that could tell a bloke whether or not a certain spell had been cast in a place, but I can't remember what the catch was…"

Hermione poured a bit of milk into her own tea, watching the pale liquid cloud in the bottom of her cup before mixing smoothly. "The charms are specific to their partner spells – each must be cast separately and only tells the caster whether or not a specific spell residue is present in the area. Only a few such charms have been developed over the years because their corresponding spells are frequently used in criminal activity."

Ron sipped tea from the cup in his right hand while he collected three biscuits in the other. He waited until after speaking before cramming them into his mouth. "So there's no way to tell when other spells were cast?"

"No… but determining the identities of those spells is a complicated and time-consuming process." Ron was busy chewing, but he made a face that Hermione interpreted as interest, so she went on.

"First, a sample of the residue must be extracted from the area in which the spell was cast, preferably as close to the target as possible. The extract is then analyzed in reaction with a standard array of potions – each of which must be brewed separately. Key observations from the resulting reactions are then factored into certain Arithmantic equations, ultimately leading to identification of the original spell." Hermione clasped her tea cup between fingers that were cold despite the late August heat that seeped past the cooling charms on the house. "Further calculations, in addition to more targeted tests with specialized families of more complex potions, could even lead to identification of the caster of that spell. However, the caster is identified numerically, meaning that a name must be derived by some other method... which has been absolutely impossible-"

It was then that Hermione caught sight of Ron's dull-eyed expression. He was gazing at the plate sitting between them, where just three biscuits remained. He lifted one of his big hands, reaching towards the survivors. Realizing that she was about to miss out on her favorite lemon biscuits, Hermione snatched two away.

Ron blinked, his cheeks faintly reddening, and retracted his hand. "Sorry, 'Mione… Potions , Arithmancy, and Charms all at once… it's a mite scary."

"Oh, Ronald. This research could really help you as an Auror, you know." She nibbled on a biscuit, tucking the other securely in the nook between her cup and saucer.

His face creased in a sweet smile. "I know, Hermione… and I know I should be listening to you, because you always figure things out. You were right about Harry and me taking the easy way out of the N.E.W.T.s and how we'd regret it later when we had to struggle with all the advanced spell work in Auror Training." He shrugged and dropped his eyes. "And it's been really hard for both of us, especially without you there to help us with our study plans. I thought I was set to die during finals last spring." Ron smiled again, leaning forward on his elbows. "You've always been there for me, though, Hermione… and I just want you to know that I appreciate you and all your hard work."

Not quite sure how to respond to that, Hermione just smiled and took Ron's hand over the table top. He squeezed her fingers gently and went on gazing into her eyes. "Hermione…"

The witch froze, suddenly recognizing a formal tone and feeling like her fingers had been caught in a trap. She had to fight to breathe.

"…do you want the last biscuit?"

Hermione expelled a sharp breath and scowled. Ron's smile had stretched into a grin; he had certainly meant to lead her on. She yanked her fingers out of his and pushed the plate with the last biscuit towards him. "Have it, prat."

Looking only a little abashed, the boy took the last biscuit from the plate between thumb and forefinger. He did not eat it, though, but simply held it for a moment, staring at its round yellow face. "If…" He seemed to think better of it, then change his mind again and, still staring at the biscuit, finished his thought. "If I really did ask you… would you say yes?"

Hermione bit back a snappish reply and took a moment to sip her tea, inhaling the fragrance as she held the cup below her lips. The milk enriched the brew, softened its edges. Unable to stall any longer, Hermione lowered her cup with a delicate _click_. She opened her mouth to speak.

Unfortunately, she wasn't quick enough. Never one to deal overly well with pressure, Ron cracked. "Come on, 'Mione. Harry and Ginny are coming up on their first anniversary this fall and, hell, you'll be twenty in just a few weeks. What are we waiting for?"

Hermione could only stare for a moment at Ron's pleading expression. Finally, in a low tone, she asked, "What has my age got to do with anything?"

"Well, it's… most people get married right after graduating. I mean, it's that or… well..." Ron shrugged.

"What?"

"Huh?" Ron's expression was an anxious blank. Anyone who hadn't been watching him for eight years might be fooled into thinking he really didn't understand, that his brain was just that flighty. Hermione felt her face darken into a scowl. She knew he was smarter than that.

"Married or what, Ron?" She pronounced each word with harsh precision.

He seemed to debate for a moment, then let it all out in a rush like some grim news. "Like McGonagall. Like Vector or Sprout or Hooch. Bloody hell, Hermione. Haven't you noticed? Witches marry right off or they never marry at all."

Hermione sat very still as she scrutinized the young man before her. "Are you implying that, if we don't get married as soon as possible, I will somehow become _magically disinclined_ to marry you?"

"Maybe. Hell, I don't know why it happens." Ron shrugged, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. "It's just, you know, the way the Wizarding World works."

"Oh, that's ridiculous, Ron. The Muggles have the same stupid myth." Hermione stood from the table, clattering her tea dishes onto the crumb-strewn plate. Her second lemon biscuit darkened as tea sloshed out of her half-empty cup. She thumped both palms on the table and frowned at him. "You know I have other obligations. Why are you rushing this?"

"Look." Ron stood as well and raised his hands as if to make peace. "I'm not saying we have to go elope right this second. I just don't know why we're putting it off."

"I suppose the fact that I'm currently eyeball deep in investigating a rash of crimes that have been downplayed by the Ministry and ignored by the rest of the Wonderful Wizarding World is just a minor speed bump in our road to a happy marriage, then, is it?"

"Come on, 'Mione! You know I understand why you're doing what you're doing. Why do you have to be like this?"

"Like what?"

"Crazy!" Ron ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head in frustration. "Cor, it's like I hardly know you sometimes. You've been acting more and more mental all year - and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Harry says you've been adding Dark books to his library. Are you-" He took a few fierce steps away from her, then whirled back. "Are you fooling around with something you shouldn't be?"

Hermione blinked and pushed herself away from the table that stood between them, straightening to her full height. She crossed her arms over her chest, scraped her bottom lip with her incisors, and coldly said, "Of course not, Ron. I'm using those texts to study some of the Dark spells that may have been used at the sites. I resent that you think you have some right to decide what I should and shouldn't be reading." After holding his gaze for a moment, she gathered all of the dishes together and, eyes on the table, continued. "And, if I've seemed like a changed person, maybe you should be talking to Harry about what it was like for him losing Sirius." Without another word, Hermione turned and strode into the kitchen with the dishes.

At the sink, she whipped out her wand and tried to charm the scrub brush into doing the wash, but it broke the first teacup in its ferocity. With a snarl, Hermione repaired the cup, tucked her wand away, and began washing by hand.

"You're not the only one who lost family, Hermione."

Her hands stilled, suds slowly crawling down between her knuckles. The tiny white orbs glided over her ink-blacked fingers, then dripped away. "I don't mean to imply that I am, Ron. But it's _different_ for me. My family was just my parents. I don't have brothers and sisters to turn to in this. I can't even talk to Mum about Dad. In some ways, I've lost her, too." She turned slightly to look over her shoulder, locking stares with Ron where he leaned in the doorway. "I've really relied on you a lot this year, Ron. And I'm so grateful that you could be there for me…"

Seeming to come to a decision, Ron stepped into the room. His expression smoothed to one of sympathy and his arms spread slightly, offering up a hug. It was the same escape he always offered her from her sorrows, from the things she snapped in her heated moments, and Hermione had always taken it, had always needed it.

Now, it took a moment of intense internal struggle for her to resist going to Ron and effectively closing the door on this conversation before she could take the next step. The irreversible step. Her mother's face loomed at the back of her mind, seeming to grow older before her very eyes.

 _…have them while we're still spry enough to lend a hand…_

Really, it was already too late, anyway.

With a deep breath, Hermione straightened and crossed her arms. "But…" Ron's arms lowered and she had to look away from him for a second while painful realization flashed across his face. Finally, she met his eyes again. "But maybe it's time I stopped being so selfish."

He just stared at her for a long moment, shock stretching his features. "Hermione…"

"I can't get married, Ron. I can't-"

"If you didn't want to marry me, why've we been shagging all year?" His voice was rising, anger breaking through. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking to Hermione as if he was trying to hide his heart.

She leaned against the sink, the edge of the counter pressing against her, steadying her. "I did want to marry you. Before my dad-" She heaved a breath and plunged on. "Before Dad died, I just wanted to take my N.E.W.T.s, go on studying Arithmancy, marry you, and have children. I wanted that normal life that we had fought for for so many years. But then…"

"But what?"

She stood up a little straighter, injecting some briskness into her voice. "But then that normal life stopped being a possibility for me." Ron was still scowling at her, but Hermione held her head higher and let her face fall into the grim expression she had become so comfortable with. "Marriage, children… As long as my father's killers walk free, I _cannot_ stop to have these things, Ron." Her tone softened slightly. "You, though… You don't have to go on waiting."

Ron stood very still for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was pained. "What are you saying, exactly?"

"I want you to be happy. I'm-" Hermione frowned. "I'm dead weight, Ron. I don't want to hold you back from the life you want."

"I wanted that life with _you_."

She held out her hands helplessly. "I can't change what I have to do or how long it could take. All I can do is set you free and let you make up your own mind."

Ron's head was shaking slowly back and forth, his lip curling a bit in disgust. "Free, am I? Dumped, more like. We've been together all this time, and you do this to me." He opened his mouth to say something else, but only clamped it shut again and strode to the hearth. Some Floo Powder sprinkled to the rug as he hurled a handful into the flames. "Senior Commons, Auror Academy!"

Then, he was gone. The house was empty. Silence ruffled its feathers and settled itself over the room. Hermione felt herself sealed snug in a delicate shell of solitude. Two thoughts pressed together, warm and viscous in her head.

 _It's finally over._

 _What have I done?_

She methodically finished cleaning up and left the kitchen. When she passed through the dining room, she saw the last biscuit lying on the table where Ron had dropped it. She left it there for the moment. The gaudy yellow color of it made her feel a touch ill.

Hermione's first instinct was to return to the library and carry on with her studies, but she walked past the door automatically and turned into her bedroom. It was tidy, with nearly everything tucked into its proper place and the bed made up for the day. Even Crookshanks lay curled on her pillow in a near-perfect sphere of orange fluff. The one item that was not where it should have been was the bag she had carried to St. Mungo's that morning, which sat on her bed, the strap draped over the edge. In such a controlled environment, it looked almost wanton.

Hermione stood before her small book shelf and, drawing her wand, unlocked the sight ward protecting what she had come to call her Borrowed Book Section. Titles changed, liquefying into their true names. _Choicest Charms_ became _Mindful Meddling For Masterful Manipulations_. _Pubcrawl, A History of Goblin Grassroots Revolution_ became _Shades of Grey, Volume II; Crueler Curses_.

When, in her research, she had come upon references to books that neither Hogwarts nor the Puffed-Up House of Black possessed, Hermione had been forced to become more enterprising. She wrote letters to renowned owners of books, who sometimes permitted her to visit their private libraries and sometimes, trusting that her War Hero status made her into some champion of unquestionable moral fiber, they actually lent her the books by owl. Hermione herself never would have lent out books to a stranger, but she did not hesitate to take advantage of the trust of less discerning bibliophiles. It was for the greater good, after all.

Occasionally, she would come across a reference to a Dark book that no one she contacted kept – or wanted to admit to keeping. Hermione had a particular modus operandi for such situations. If a perusal of Knockturn Alley failed to drum up the text of interest, it was time again to return to Malfoy Manor.

The first time had been frightening as well as challenging. Between returning to the site of her own torture and unlocking some very complex and intimidating wards, it had been nothing short of nerve-wracking. It was February by then, and the air, sharpened by 3am chill, had pierced Hermione's cloak and raked her whole body like a raw nerve, like tonguing the empty socket where a tooth had just been.

Like the lingering sting of the Cruiciatus Curse.

Gryffindor that she was, though, Hermione did not hesitate to go back a second time when she realized the books she had stuffed into her beaded bag did not contain all of the answers she needed.

In the months she had been on her hunt for information, she had borrowed a total of twelve rare and dangerous books from the Malfoy library. They now inhabited the bottom shelf of her Borrowed Book Section and, every time she looked at them, Hermione felt a faint pang of guilt, quickly squelched by righteousness. Had the books belonged to anyone but Draco Malfoy, she could not have taken them in the first place. Repentant or not, the boy was a git.

However, Hermione could not deny the truth and, every time she looked at those books, the same thought popped into her head. _I am a book-thief, now._

Gazing at the full shelf, she could not help but wonder whether maybe Ron had a point. Maybe she really was a different person. A dreadful old maid obsessed with the Dark Arts who exploited the love of young men for her own selfish reasons and then broke their hearts, and who also snuck into people's houses and stole their books.

Turning away from the bookshelf with a sigh, Hermione flopped down on her bed. Crookshanks gave her a stony, slit-eyed look of reproach, but closed his eyes and splayed his ears with a raspy purr as Hermione scratched the top of his head with one blunt fingernail. Leaving her cat in peace, she stared at the ceiling for a moment.

Even here, the still air was filled with Ron's hurt, thick and choking as dust.

With a sigh, Hermione snatched up her bag and took out the notebook to begin planning her next conversation with Jane. Only, when she looked at the open page, something else caught her eye. She held the notebook at arm's length above her face and squinted at the half-word she had scribbled out - oh yes, when she had seen Snape through the curtains. She had forgotten about it completely, that little instant of epiphany.

"Lega… legality? Legacy? For heaven's sakes…"

Hermione's life had always been composed of puzzles of varying size and importance. At present, the biggest puzzle surrounded her parents and the Death Eaters. On a much smaller scale, there was the Ron-puzzle, accompanied by other, similar friend puzzles. There were also puzzles that had nothing to do with her, but which she felt compelled to take a crack at anyway, the Snape-puzzle being case in point. And then, there were the tiny, every-day Hermione-puzzles to be figured out, which included occasional fits of awful handwriting, fickle ideas, and internal conflicts.

Sometimes, though, two half-finished puzzles could be fitted together to make a bigger picture.

Snape had known a great many Death Eaters and their proclivities - the sort of insight Hermione had hoped to gain by interviewing prisoners in Azkaban before all her requests had been denied. But Snape was not in Azkaban. He was right across the aisle from her mum. If she could fix whatever was wrong with him, his aide could be invaluable in her search. Of course, if St. Mungo's couldn't fix Snape, there was no reason for Hermione to believe that she could. Still… Still.

She looked again at her list, which was all written in highly legible cursive, then back to the scribbled fragment. The 'a' in 'Lega-' was especially horrid, disconnected at the top and stretched a bit too tall, almost like a 'd'… or...

Hermione stared. Oh. Oh, yes. That _was_ an idea…

She hurled herself to her feet, yanked the copy of _Mindful Meddling_ from her shelf, and rushed to the library to look for _Rasputin's Reptilian Resource_.

.

* * *

AN: Thanks for reading! In the process of revising this chapter, it occurred to me that this story has a huge potential to go Dramione. Tucking that idea away for later. Thoughts?


	4. Chapter 4

Though the Black library did not contain _Rasputin's Reptilian Resource_ , the Medicinal Potions and Antidotes section at Hogwarts did. Hermione had spent most of Saturday night making copies of the chapters of interest, then had returned to Grimmauld Place to delve into _Mindful Meddling_. When that book was exhausted, she turned to _Walking the Inner Ways_. Then, _Fortress of the Mind_.

It was Sunday afternoon when Harry came home, though Hermione was then measuring time by lengths of parchment filled rather than what any clock told her. She heard him coming up the stairs and, out of habit, drew her wand, though she felt silly when his scruffy-haired head poked through the library door.

"Alright, Hermione?" He paused in the hallway and seemed to be watching her with much the same caution he might use when regarding an undetonated dung bomb.

Between his hesitance and the way these interruptions interfered with her research, Hermione was reluctant to put away her wand. She wanted to snap and snarl until he left her in peace – she was so close! Instead, she forcefully reminded herself that Harry was her friend and that he had a right to be concerned. When she spoke, her voice was calm, if a bit terse.

"Come to see the crazy old maid, have you?"

Harry finally stepped into the library. He brushed the ashes out of his hair and off of his robes before he drew out the chair opposite Hermione and sat in it. He met her eyes, firm and level. "Okay. What gives?"

She took a deep breath, bracing herself. Harry seemed to already have an opinion on matters, which meant that Ron had been in a bad state last night. Add to it that Ron had returned to their dormitory on Saturday night – which was unofficially 'Harry and Ginny Are Married, Now, So Bugger Off, Ron' Night – and it was perfectly understandable that Harry would be a little extra perturbed by the state of things.

Hermione folded her hands in her lap and sat up straight. "I had to let Ron go."

Harry gaped at her. "'Let him go'? Hermione, did you dump him or did you _fire_ him?"

"I did what was best for him." A touch warm-cheeked, she raised her chin and returned Harry's incredulity with her grim look.

"How is breaking his heart for the best?"

"Better now than in another year or two, isn't it?" She didn't like the way he was staring at her, as if he didn't know her at all, as if she was being so outrageously unfair. "Look Harry, I realize I've been selfish. But I'm not so short-sighted as to let one of my best friends waste his life pining after me when I have other priorities."

"Other priorities? Hermione, you have _always_ had other priorities. School, the war, _S.P.E.W.!_ " His eyes crinkled with undying exasperation. "What makes you think solving this latest thing is going to change that?"

She paused a moment, lips pinched into a tight frown, before speaking in a low voice. "Harry Potter, are _you_ trying to lecture me about letting go?"

"No, Hermione." Sympathy broke into his expression and he waved a hand. "What you're doing now is important – probably for the whole world, even. But don't let this… _quest_ keep you from living, either."

"I can't."

Her voice quaked just the tiniest bit when she spoke, but Hermione pushed on. Her eyes locked with Harry's, latched onto the understanding that was suddenly there.

"It's getting worse, not better. I only work now so that I can buy books and food, but mostly books." She shook her head, her voice dully registering her own surprise. "Remember when I took that job? I said it was only for the summer, that I'd pick up studying again that fall. A year's gone by – an entire year – and I can't stop. I get closer every day, but just by inches. It could take years to develop a functional matrix. And I have to finish this, Harry."

"I know you do. So does Ron. Hell, Hermione, we want to help you do it. That's why I don't get it."

"Don't you see, Harry?" She pulled her lips back in something like a smile. "You and Ron are on your way to becoming Aurors. I haven't even applied to any universities… because I don't care."

Harry's eyes bulged. His whisper was almost a reprimand, as if she had spoken blasphemy. "Hermione!"

"I don't care about my future. I don't care about my education. All I want is to solve the puzzle, Harry. Ron, he can go on with his life. Marry someone who can spare him more than one night of the week, you know?"

Harry heaved a skeptical breath and Hermione leaned forward onto the table. This was not something she had planned on explaining to either of the boys, but she needed Harry, at least, to understand. "I love Ron dearly, but lately when Saturday night rolls around, I… just feel like he's in my way. My research is too technical to talk about with him, and I can't enjoy going out or seeing a film or anything, because my mind is always _here_." She jabbed one finger hard on her notes. It connected with a satisfying thump. "And that leaves just the one thing we do together that- well, it does make me feel better, I'll admit, but-"

He turned his eyes up to the ceiling and winced. "Please don't tell me about your sex life, Hermione."

"I'll spare you the gory details," she sniped, "but the fact of the matter is I almost _never_ stop thinking about catching those Death Eaters, Harry. Never. Do you understand?"

She saw the moment comprehension flooded his face. "You mean, even while you're- when he's-"

"Every time."

Harry peered around the room, blushing and shaking his head at everything but her.

"You cannot tell Ronald any of this," Hermione said in a rush. "He won't understand. It's not about him or his… techniques-"

"Gah!"

"It's my mind, Harry. I'm not there with him, even when I really want to be. And I feel like that's what our whole relationship has boiled down to; two people experiencing the same events in totally different ways. That's not what I want, and it's not enough for Ron, either. It's not fair or right, but that's the ugly truth of it."

Harry was finally looking at her, but he was looking at her as if he wasn't so sure he knew her, anymore. "You… Has it always been… like that, for you?"

"Oh, Harry." She rubbed her face, sitting back in the chair. Her eyes were puffy and slightly crusted from her sleeplessness. "No. It didn't start this way - but I'm not the girl I was when we defeated Voldemort, you know? My Dad died. All my precautions, the memory charms, Australia, all that meant nothing. I brought my parents back too soon and Death Eaters killed him. It's hard to pretend like anything else matters."

Hermione brushed the tears off her cheeks with her sleeves, so she didn't see the moment Harry moved around the table to hug her. But she felt it, and she clung to him and pressed her face to his shoulder. She heaved a few sobbing breaths and he awkwardly patted her back. Finally, when she'd calmed down a bit, he spoke.

"I'm sorry, Hermione. You're the best of us, you know. I always kind of assume you have some kind of trick up your sleeve. But there's not really a trick for grief, is there?"

"No," she sniffed against his shoulder. "I looked."

"'Course you did."

She chuckled wetly and drew back again. "Does this mean you don't hate me?"

"Couldn't if I tried." Harry stayed where he was, kneeling on the floor by her chair. He pointed at her, suddenly serious. "You can't dump me, though. I'm your landlord."

Hermione smiled and rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, well, when you put it that way."

He stood up and glanced at her parchment-littered work station. "Making progress?"

The mere mention of her project flushed Hermione with new energy and enthusiasm. "I think I'm making a breakthrough, Harry. It's not quite what I was working on before, but I think it could ultimately give me the leg-up I need to pin down an Arithmantic formula for a post-mortem tracker spell and, well… this could be it."

"What did you find?"

She opened her mouth, eyes gleaming with hope, but then hesitated. "I don't want to jinx it, Harry. I need to research more and… run a test. Then, I'll tell you all about it. Promise."

Harry only smiled indulgently. They had been through this any number of times already, with other breakthroughs that didn't ultimately pan out. And if he was relieved he didn't have to listen to a whole long explanation about how this time was different, he had the good grace not to show it.

After Harry left, Hermione threw herself back into her work. It was only when she ran out of parchment hours later that she realized it was after midnight. Had she not paused to check a clock on her way to the cabinet, she may have worked through the second consecutive night.

She forced a few hours of sleep and then Flooed to work at Flourish and Blotts Monday morning with gritty eyes, a stiff back, and hope nattering at the back of her mind. The whole day, she fought a battle in one direction or the other, struggling first with drowsiness, then with failing concentration. Her thoughts strayed constantly away from the new texts she was shelving and she had to stop herself from opening any books even tangentially related to her topic of interest - even those she had read already - else risk becoming irreversibly engrossed.

 _._

* * *

.

A week passed that way, mind-numbing days chasing franticly cerebral nights until it was Saturday again. Walking into the Spell Damage Ward, Hermione acted precisely as she always did when visiting her mother.

Being as it was the first Saturday of September, she brought along a selection of new books. Mostly, they were books on Muggle science or culture, though she always threw in a couple of slim collections of poetry and at least one book on the Wizarding World in an effort towards her ongoing project of bringing her mother more fully into her life. Jane smiled agreeably and accepted the books with unfeigned pleasure.

"Oh, and you brought me a crossword! What a darling daughter I have…"

"Good exercise for the brain."

They sat together in the blockish upholstered chairs gathered by the windows. Jane was fully dressed in preparation for a field trip of sorts. The ward sent its mostly-cognizant occupants on monthly outings to the sea to promote good emotional well-being. Hermione's mother seemed especially excited this month.

"Now that the summer's over, it'll be just a cool, breezy day, walking along the beach… unless, of course, that Morton fellow tries to turn himself into a shark again. I swear, he gets the funniest ideas in his head." Her smile became squinty-eyed – almost a smirk. "He likes to tell me about the days when he was a cannon! Even Donald wouldn't be able to keep a straight face for that one…"

'That Morton fellow' was, in fact, Montolio Morton, who had played for the Chudley Cannons until an out-of-bounds Bludger had knocked him quite permanently off both his broom and his nut. Hermione saw no reason for her mother to know this though. She suspected it made Jane feel better if she thought she was the least crazy person in the ward.

"You've been awfully quiet today, dear. Is something the matter?" Jane folded her delicate hands in her lap and tilted her head in her particular blend of perceptiveness and concern.

Hermione heaved a great sigh. Her only news was bad news, and there was no telling how Jane would take it. Not wanting to ruin what should be a fun day, Hermione only offered up a weary smile.

"I'm just tired, I suppose. I've a bit of a new project underway and I've had a few long nights this week."

Jane looked at her for a drawn-out moment, seeming to pierce through the excuses to a deeper source. "I do wish you'd take better care of yourself, Hermione." She reached out with her slender hand and tucked one of her only child's errant curls back amongst its fellows, stroking her pale cheek as she did so. "You're still so thin. Are you eating well?"

"I'm trying." The witch leaned into her mother's touch. "I just get so wrapped up."

"You were never this skinny when you came back from school, you know. You always had rosy, round cheeks and bright eyes… What's the matter, dear?"

Hermione sniffed a bit and drew back to dig in her bag for a handkerchief. "Ah, Mum…" She dabbed her eyes and smiled at the older woman. "It's just- everything changing. It's hard not being a kid anymore."

Jane smiled sadly. At the other end of the ward, a nurse made an announcement that it was time for patients who were going on the trip to make their way to the front desk. Hermione stood and gathered up the books she had brought with her.

"I'll put these on your beside table. Do you want to keep any of the old lot?"

"No, dear. I've finished with them." Despite the words, she placed a gentle hand on Hermione's arm where it was wrapped around the stack of books. "Do you know, when I was your age, I had no clue what to do with my life?"

Hermione pulled up short and stared. In her head, she was doing quick calculations. "I would have thought you were at university."

"Oh, darling, I was nearly thirty before I decided to go into dentistry."

For a heart-shattering moment, Hermione was afraid. Was this some new manifestation of Jane's condition? Were all of her memories now becoming corrupted? But despite the horrified look that had to be plainly visible on her face, Jane only laughed, a little embarrassed.

"I know, dear. A truly shocking revelation - and no small hypocrisy on my part, I'll admit. I only wanted you to have every opportunity, right from the start." Her smile was gentle, glowing from within as she looked up at her only child. "The point is that you aren't the only remarkably capable person to climb something of a metaphorical mountain and then look around wondering what to do next. Be kind to yourself, dear. You'll work it out."

Hermione felt another tear spill over and dribble down her cheek. "Thanks, Mum."

Jane lingered for a moment, pressing one cool hand to Hermione's cheek and smiling at her. Then she turned for the reception area and left. Hermione watched her dignified walk for a moment, struck deeply by a sudden awareness that this woman had lived an entire life before she had decided to have a child. Jane had been a young woman that Hermione could only just faintly imagine, and that hint of another life filled her with a flurry of fresh questions.

But that was not for today. She ducked through the curtain and exchanged the books with the neat stack next to the tidily-made bed. Time was short.

After swiftly tucking the old books into her beaded bag, Hermione peeked out of the curtain towards the far end of the ward and, seeing no witnesses, scurried across the way to the cubicle of Severus Snape.

He was awake and sitting up against his pillows, his black eyes doing their unconscious dance along the curtain opposite him. He did not seem to see her - and that alarmed her more this week than it had last week, because suddenly it wasn't just the Sorry Story of Severus Snape that hung in the balance; it was justice itself. If there was nothing at all left of him in there, there was nothing to be done.

Gingerly, Hermione sat on the edge of his bed as she had seen Gwen do the previous week. "Mr. Snape?"

Snape's eyes continued their fluttering dance without so much as alighting on her. He was dressed, unaccountably, in a nightgown with little ducky print. They swam blue waves in rows, pink, green, and yellow duckies with cheery dots for eyes. This close, Hermione could see the raised texture of the scars across his throat and she could smell the shampoo the nurses had been using – something strawberry.

It smelled nice, but Snape would never approve. In fact, he would no doubt devise some unnecessarily cutting remarks for the staff, given the chance. And, heaven help her, she meant to give him the chance.

Whipping out her wand, Hermione stared into her ex-professor's eyes and muttered, " _Legilimens_."

She mentally flailed about, searching for something, some sign that there was a mind at all behind those eyes that – curse it! – kept roving about.

Releasing the spell, Hermione huffed a sigh. She had to make him be still or she would never find what she was looking for, if it was even there at all.

Acutely aware that the nurse on duty could come looking for her at any second, Hermione silently petrified Snape. His eyes were pointed at a spot somewhere above his feet. Leaning over his still body she again hissed, " _Legilimens_."

This time was much better, as if the connection had stopped vanishing and reappearing before her. However, this also meant that Hermione could more clearly sense what she was faced with.

It was like reaching into a well. Where Snape's mind should have been, there was only a long, deep fall. The complete absence of any mind at all. Dread swelled in her belly as Hermione reached, grasping in the dark.

And then she found it; there was a thread-thin presence, like the rope connecting crank to bucket. When she followed it down a little ways, she felt a distant thrumming of life and activity.

Hermione withdrew quickly. She took a few calming breaths before releasing Snape from the paralysis, then sat back from him as his eyes carried on with their aimless journey.

Mindful of the limited time she had left, she rose, peeked out into the ward, and, certain the coast was clear, began walking for the door. Her stride was held under rigid control, a dignified pace that bespoke calm confidence. She nodded to the nurse on duty and, finally stepping out the door, paused on the landing.

With her eyes not really seeing the stairwell that sank and rose before her, Hermione Granger's face split into a fierce and victorious grin.

She had found Severus Snape's mind. She knew how to fix him.

.

* * *

.

Not an hour later, Hermione appeared with a crack on the sidewalk in front of a little house outside of Darlington. It was a charming brick with goldenrod trim and a walled-in yard positively overflowing with bushes, stalks, buds, and blooms of myriad colors and sizes. Outside the front window, there was a stumpy birdbath, thickly overgrown with some manner of flowering vine that periodically dipped its tendrils in the water and raised them to the sky.

As Hermione opened the iron gate and strolled up the walk, some particularly curious orchid-like flowers turned their broad faces to watch her progress. She stepped up onto the stoop and knocked three strong raps against the front door. While waiting, she studied the birdbath. A clutch of greenish toads lounged in the water, snapping up the insects that came to investigate the flowering vine.

The door opened and Neville's face split into a surprised smile. "Hermione! Come in!"

"Afternoon, Neville," Hermione chirped brightly as she stepped past him. "I hope I'm not intruding, but I've just had the most exciting discovery."

Hardly noticing the narrow entryway they stood in, Hermione whirled to Neville the instant he closed the door. "Do you still want to help?"

Perhaps it was the manic gleam in her eye or the fact that she was effectively blocking his escape to any other part of his house, but the Neville didn't remove his hand from the doorknob. "I- Catching the…?" He straightened. "Yes, I do."

"Right. Then, as I need a hand with this next step, you're just the fellow to lend it. Oh, Neville, this is it! I can feel it!" Her hands curled into fists.

"Would you like some tea or something?" He tried to urge her further down the hallway, but she only spoke more quickly.

"It's his immunity, Neville, that's the only reason he's still alive. It's brilliant, really. He managed to build up an immunity to the physical effects of the neurotoxin, but he couldn't develop a magical immunity, so his mind was still chucked out of order. He's just cleaning house, Neville! Once it's all put to rights, he'll be good as new – and then!" Hermione wasn't even looking at her host anymore, but gazing off over his shoulder. "Then we'll _have_ them."

A moment of silence passed while she imagined it, an end to this hunt, this quest as Harry had called it. Maybe then the old desires would spark back into her heart. Maybe she could bring herself to care about school or Ron or any normal thing, if she could only finish this.

Neville swallowed. "We will?"

Hermione looked back at him, grinning. "Without a doubt. Now, when do you normally visit your parents in hospital, Neville?"

"I, ah… Whenever I get free time, I suppose. I thought I might stop by after work on Monday."

"Excellent. Wait for me in the stairwell at six o'clock sharp." She pushed past him and stepped out the door.

"At St. Mungo's? Hermione, what-? What are we going to do?"

Standing on his stoop, Hermione looked back over her shoulder at the confounded wizard, her face positively alight with anticipation.

"We're going to steal Professor Snape."


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Thanks for reading/reviewing! This is where the more extensive rewrites are starting to come in. So hopefully there will be less drag from here on!

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"I just don't understand it," Ron said, rolling over yet again on his bed so that the sheets were twisted another time around his legs. His arms draped off the side of the mattress and his face hung down between them, staring woefully at the floor. "We've been together so long. Why would she do this to me? Just out of the blue? Over nothing? Did she say anything to you about it? Like why? Is there someone else?"

Harry, with a sigh, abandoned the procedure text he had been painstakingly annotating and turned his chair around so his back was to the desk. It was Sunday afternoon and there was an exam tomorrow, but there was no point trying to work. Ron wasn't getting through this on his own.

"There's no one else, mate, she's just going through a hard time and needs her space."

"Do you think she'll come back, then?" It was sad how fast Ron popped up, how loudly he pleaded with his eyes.

"I don't know, mate. Probably not before she finishes with The Matrix."

Ron flopped back down and snarled into the mattress. "Always The bloody Matrix."

That was what they called her project between themselves. The Matrix, like that American film that had come out a few months back and was all the rage amongst the Muggles. They had never seen it, but the adverts were here and there in Muggle London. They liked to joke that Hermione saw everything in streams of green numbers, that she knew secrets that would blow everyone's minds. They were waiting for her to start wearing all black naugahyde and sunglasses. It was just a laugh, something to break up the painful seriousness of what she was going through, at least in private.

Harry wasn't sure what to do. Ron was bad off, but Hermione seemed fine about the breakup - if not everything else. It didn't sit well with Harry, who had watched them dance around each other for so many years before finally coming together. They were good together, they fit and seemed stable and right to him, the way that a couple should be. So it was disturbing to watch Hermione destroy that stability because she deemed it a distraction from The Matrix. It bothered him quite a bit that she would just give up on Ron when he became inconvenient. In fact, it bothered him so much that he'd ignored her owls all weekend, setting them aside unread.

Harry loved Hermione, and he had immense sympathy for her losses, but here was Ron before him now, his best mate, torn up over a girl who had to pretend that he mattered.

Harry crossed the room and sat down on his own bed across from Ron. "Look, I know it hurts right now, but you're better off without her, alright?"

Red-faced from breathing through the bedding, Ron peered pitifully up at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"She's just-" Harry shook his head, tried to think how to put it. "She's changed. Losing her dad like that, it made her… cold."

Ron seemed to digest this for a moment, seemed to think it over. Then he threw himself to his feet and began pacing the room. "You know what? You're right. She has gotten cold. She used to be interested in cool stuff. We used to talk about Quidditch sometimes! But then she got wrapped up with all this and suddenly everything I said was too dull for her."

Harry got the distinct feeling that Hermione had probably never cared about Ron's Quidditch stories. More likely, she had just lost the patience it took to sit and listen to one of his winding accounts of whichever team's long road to victory. But it felt better to see his friend pacing rather than wallowing.

"And, you know, not to be the sort of tosser to say it but-" Ron let loose a sardonic, brittle laugh. "Well, I'll just say 'cold' might be a good word for her, but 'frigid' hits a mite closer to the mark if you know what I mean."

Having only just escaped the swarm of mental images Hermione had stuck him with, Harry shook his head and tried to change the subject, but Ron was already going on.

"I mean, she's got so many rules! It's like trying to shag an instruction manual that's charmed to tell you everything you're doing wrong."

This was actually not so far off from what Harry had envisioned in some of his lower moments, but hearing it confirmed aloud was by no means comforting. "Well then," he said, leaping to his feet. "Like I said. You're better off without her."

Ron stopped square between him and his desk and, as Harry watched, his face crumpled. "But I _love_ her! Isn't that what you do when you love someone? Look past the stuff that makes it hard and just-" He held up his hands before him as if jamming two impossible puzzle pieces together. "-make it work?"

Harry peered helplessly at his friend. "I don't know, mate. Honestly, I've always kind of looked at your family as the ideal sort - and you grew up in it. I imagine, if there's a trick to making things work, you're probably more likely to know it than I am."

As he watched, Ron's face shifted from one of wretched sorrow to the thoughtful frown he got while leaning over a chess board. "Right. That's it, then. That's what I'll do."

"Wait. What?"

But he was already grabbing his cloak and striding out the door, muttering to himself. The door shut behind him and Harry stared at it for a long, unnervingly quiet moment. He had a feeling that he'd just set something terrible in motion.

.

* * *

.

For reasons she did not care to parse through, Hermione detested going to the Auror Academy, and even though the dormitories were the least academic part of the campus, she hated them most of all. She told herself it was the drinking and feckless debauchery, but her disgust for that disorderly behavior stemmed more from resentment for persons able and engaged in scholarly pursuits who instead wasted their time on hedonism.

And tonight, when she could no longer avoid going at all, it was especially bad. In the lounge that was the central hub of the building, adult children spilled themselves across sofas and study tables, giggling and gibbering nonsense to one another over booze-spotted notes. In the stairwell, a necking couple hardly spared her a glance, and only that to ascertain whether she was an authority. Even in the hallway, probably just steps away from their own rooms, boys sprawled with their legs across the walkway, gazing up at her with what they wrongly assumed was sensual ambivalence. To Hermione, they just looked drunk and foolish.

Disgusted, she stepped over their feet and rapped on Harry and Ron's door enough times to draw slurred questions from her witless audience. Thankfully, the door wrenched open quickly. The ghost of irritation faded from Harry's face as she brushed past him into the room.

"There you are! Haven't you been getting my owls?"

He stared at her with an anxious light in his eyes, then glanced down the hall and shut the door. Outside, the drunks were guffawing, probably at her, now that she thought of it. But that didn't matter. Harry's effort at a blank expression, though, did.

"No," he lied. "I mean, yes. But I've had this exam to study for and, between Ron being heartbroken and everyone deciding to tie one off for Ifrit Week, I didn't have time for distractions."

Hermione accepted what was, after all, a perfectly reasonable explanation and completely failed to notice the understated barb he'd aimed at her. "I don't know how you can study like this, Harry. What is Ifrit Week and why has it made your entire school go mad?"

He sighed and rammed his fingers through his hair. He must have been doing that a lot, as it remained unchanged, sticking straight up all over. "Those are all third years. Instead of having an exam tomorrow like me and most everyone else, they're preparing to interview the visiting ifrits, which are-"

"-magical creatures created by the spilled blood of murder victims. Does it really take an entire week to learn that?"

"I don't know. I'm not a third year, am I." He sighed heavily. "I guess it's a tradition for third years to perform their interviews massively hungover. Apparently, the ifrits find it disarming."

Hermione watched Harry stalk across the room to his desk and brace his hands on the back of his chair. From the look of it, he had done a great deal of work already. And yet, he didn't look at all pleased about it.

"Harry, is something wrong?"

He sighed and faced her again, rubbing the back of his neck now. Hermione knew that look. He was on the brink of admitting to having done something.

"I may have… That is, I'm worried about Ron."

"He's not studying, is he? Oh, Harry, I didn't even think of that! If I'd known there was an exam, I would have timed it better."

He stared at her for a beat, then smiled sadly. "I know you would, Hermione. You must have gone through this loads of times, studying hard with me and Ron off running around Hogwarts."

She knew he was changing course. She knew he was hiding something. But if he was willing to change the subject now, she would not turn down the chance. She didn't have time right now to wheedle the truth out of him. So she only smiled bittersweetly back. "Doesn't feel good, does it?"

"Well, maybe a little bit, in a sort of a righteous way."

"There is that." Hermione chuckled with him, then grew serious. There wasn't time. She had so many preparations to make still. "Harry, I need a favor. I have to borrow your invisibility cloak."

"Sure," he said reflexively, then hesitated. "Off to loot Malfoy again?"

Her mouth popped open and she gaped at him. "How did you know?"

"Well, I am training to be an Auror. You know, investigating crimes and such." He grinned at her expression and finally shrugged. "His name is inscribed in half the books you leave out on the table, Hermione. And you're clearly up to no good."

That much was true. Hermione opened her mouth to admit to what she was really planning to do with his cloak, but she hesitated. Maybe, if Harry was keeping secrets of his own, it wasn't exactly prudent to tell him what she was planning. He had always been prickly when it came to Professor Snape, and he'd been tight-lipped about whatever secrets he'd seen revealed in the Pensieve, reporting only that Snape had worked for the Order even through his worst years. Even killing Dumbledore was a part of that plan. It was hard to guess where Harry stood on the spy, and to ask now would be exceedingly incriminating. If he took it into his head to interfere, he could cause Hermione no end of trouble.

So she smiled, and shrugged feebly. "Does it count as stealing if you steal from someone vile?"

"In the eyes of the law, I suppose so." Harry grinned and fished the Invisibility Cloak out of his sock drawer. "But I'm not an Auror yet. Rob the git blind, Hermione."

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* * *

.

Less than twenty-four hours later, Hermione snuck into St. Mungo's under the cover of the Invisibility Cloak and knocked around the fourth floor landing like a guilty ghost. She hated lying to Harry, even if he had started it, and she hated knowing that Ron's grades were going to take a hit because of her. There was nothing for it, though. She'd set out on this course of action, and she had to see it through.

Finally, quite a bit late, Neville came lunging up the stairs three at a time. He very nearly ran into her.

"What part of six o'clock sharp was unclear?" she demanded.

He teetered on the last step, searching the apparently empty stairwell with wide eyes. Hermione snatched his robes to keep him from tipping backward down the stairs. Neville gulped and peered at an approximation of where she stood. "S-sorry, Hermione. I'm just a fair bit nervous. This is _kidnapping_ …"

"Oh, pish posh, Neville. It's for his own good. We're performing a public service, if you think about it."

"Are you sure? I mean-" He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the floor. "-you weren't there for his go at headmaster. He was unfair as a professor but he was an absolute nightmare when he had the run of things."

Hermione gritted her teeth. She should have predicted more resistance from Neville. He wasn't the same doughy boy she had gone to school with. He was the new Neville, a snake-chopping hero in his own right who had led the resistance against Headmaster Snape.

"Look," she said, taking a firm grip on his shoulder. "It's true he's a cruel, miserable man. But he made it possible for us to win the war, and he very nearly died to do it. Do you really think its right for him to stay in this ward for the rest of his life?"

"Well, no… But you're not exactly doing this out of the kindness of your heart, Hermione."

"Yes, fine, I need his help."

"See, that's just it. You're taking this enormous risk for a nasty git who _could_ be helpful, _if_ he wanted to be. Only, he's not exactly known for his generous nature. How do you know you're not going to go to all this trouble for him, only to have him turn on you when it's done?"

Hermione hardly paused a beat. "That's not going to be a problem. Now, can we carry on already? We don't have much time."

He wasn't exactly enthusiastic, but he listened to her instructions with enough attention that she knew she had won. Finally, she explained the signal she would use to let her know when it was time to leave.

"I'll give your ear a pinch, like this."

"Hey!" He gave a start and nearly went toppling back down the stairs. "Couldn't you just whisper it to me or pull the back of my robes or something?"

"Too conspicuous. The nurse could see your robes moving or might overhear me whispering, but she won't notice if your ear twitches a bit."

Looking very anxious and somewhat pink-cheeked, the wizard did as she asked. Hermione slipped through the door in front of him and, tip-toeing in her trainers, made her way down the ward. Behind her, she could hear Neville greeting his parents in the sitting area and then tossing some nervous but tolerably casual questions towards Gwen, who happened to be the Mediwitch on duty.

Hermione smiled. Neville could be subtler than a hammer, after all.

She spotted her mother sitting amongst the chairs clustered about the windows at the end of the ward. Jane was smiling faintly, reading the book on magical creatures that Hermione had procured for her. Resisting the urge to investigate further, Hermione glanced around to make sure no one was looking and then slipped through the split in the curtain around Snape's bed.

As usual, he was sitting up, gazing around mindlessly.

Hermione threw off the Invisibility Cloak and unzipped the garment bag she had brought along, carefully laying it out on the floor next to the bed.

A full-grown man would not fit inside her beaded bag – well, he could perhaps be _made_ to fit, but it would be sketchy squeezing him through the bag's opening. However, the same Undetectable Extension Charm could be cast on another object, such as the garment bag that usually contained Hermione's professional robes, to make it spacious enough inside to contain a body.

Hermione drew back the blankets that covered Snape's legs and leveled her wand at him. Like all patients in St. Mungo's, Snape was tagged with a number of enchantments designed to notify the staff if he should wander out of his ward, as well as to monitor his vital signs and internal magical activity. They were all fairly simple spells to remove, but security precautions were also set to inform the staff if the spells were being tampered with.

Hermione smiled slightly and fished in her pocket until she found the grease-spotted napkin from this morning's breakfast pastry. She wadded and twisted the napkin until it was vaguely human in shape and set it on the bed next to Snape.

 _History and Fundamental Practices of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Illnesses_ had been located in the Magical Society section of the Hogwarts library and the spells and enchantments most recently put to use by the hospital were listed clearly in the monthly staff newsletter, a copy of which Hermione had snitched from the front desk. Carefully, she began unraveling the layers of magic that held the dark-haired wizard to his bed, just enough to shift them to their new target, the napkin. She carefully added new components to the status-monitoring spells so that they would simply continue reading as they had when they were connected to a real human.

Finally, after each magical trace was removed, Hermione wiped her sweating brow and looked back at Snape. He laid there just the same, eyes still roaming. After an instant of hesitation and a quiet, "Sorry about this, sir," she again petrified Snape and levitated him into the garment bag, where he seemed to sink below the level of the floor. His feet did not quite fit, so the witch released the spell holding him and, after another brief hesitation, knelt beside him to bend his knees one at a time so that his socked feet would tuck in the end of the bag.

The skin of his calves was cool and covered with slightly curling black hairs that made Hermione distinctly aware that Professor Snape actually was and had always been a man somewhere under his creepy black robes. Right now, he was only a lean, still, hardly-clothed man. His hedgehog-print hospital gown was rucked up slightly, baring one lean thigh to where the hairs thinned out.

He was practically naked.

Feeling down-right scandalous, Hermione raised a hand to pull the fabric back down. Her thumb just slightly brushed against his naked leg. It was cool and smooth to the touch, and it made her cheeks blaze.

Down the ward, Neville's voice rose. "Oh, um! Wait a moment! I think, um… Does Mum look different? Has she had a haircut this week?"

"No, Mr. Longbottom. She hasn't. Now, delightful as it has been to chat with you, I do need to check on another patient."

"Well, uh… Maybe it's, um, _your_ hair that's different, Mediwitch Gwen. Have you, ah… had it… done?"

"Oh. Well, now that you mention it, yes. I had an herbal treatment this week."

"It- You'll think this is silly, but it actually looks a lot like the petals of _Hamamelis Jelena_. It's lovely."

"Why- Thank you… Neville."

Hermione let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and silently applauded Neville's sudden show of enthusiasm as a distraction. She quickly zipped the garment bag closed and threw the Invisibility Cloak back over her shoulders. When she picked up the bag, it felt as if it contained no more than a winter coat and was easily slung over one shoulder and covered with the Invisibility Cloak. Almost as a last thought, she executed a masterful Transfiguration on the greasy napkin. It morphed and grew into a fair likeness of Snape, complete with hedgehog-print gown and restlessly wandering eyes.

There. Snape-kin. Until someone scanned the imposter directly, no one would know he was missing.

Carefully, Hermione crept out of the curtained-off area and made her way back to the door.

Neville looked rather red-cheeked and was stammering something about 'the orchard' and 'a spectacular bloom this year' and 'would you care to join me?' Gwen was smiling her serene smile, but her cheeks were a little extra pink as well. She said something about 'that does sound lovely' and 'gentle rains' and 'uncommonly lush.' Hermione glanced between them and wondered, a little bemused despite her urgency to escape, how this hadn't happened yet.

She reached up to Neville, her arm still covered by the cloak, and gave his ear a slight squeeze. He waved her hand away as if it were a fly and went on gazing in shocked pleasure at Gwen.

 _His brain's been compromised!_

That was alright, though. He'd done all she truly needed him to do, anyway. If he wanted to stay, she would simply find a different way to escape. Annoyed but determined, Hermione walked quietly to the door and gave three hard raps.

The Mediwitch startled slightly, then smiled apologetically at Neville and strode over to open the door. Swinging it open, she looked out, peering both up and down the stairs before shrugging and pulling her head back into the ward.

Hermione darted past her and began the descent to the busy lobby, where she would leave just as she had entered, with no one the wiser.

A pair of middle-aged witches came cackling through the ground level door and Hermione slipped easily through before it could shut again. She navigated the lobby, winding around a group of three wizards, each of whom held a fragment of a fourth wizard, whose head was calmly explaining to a skeptical Healer as to Just What Happened. Finally, Hermione slipped through the front door just behind a portly wizard in puce robes and then strode into an alley to Apparate back to Grimmauld Place with her prize.

Now, it was time for the true challenge to begin.


	6. Chapter 6

AN: Thanks for reading! Thanks for being out there! We're getting to the part of this story that makes me excited to work on it again. Hope you like it!

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Hermione stood at the foot of the bed just a meter or so from her own, the bed where Ginny had slept years ago and which had, since that time, remained empty and charmed against the dust. The new occupant lay there now, tucked in to his armpits and heavily spelled for health, comfort, and sanitary purposes. His eyes tripped about the ceiling, tireless as ever.

It had taken some time to get him settled and all the proper magic in order. Now, it had grown late and Hermione was perilously close to ignoring the loud rumbles of her belly and just jumping right in.

The sound of footsteps rapidly coming up the stairs, accompanied by Ron's calls, effectively eliminated the need to make a decision. Hermione darted to the door just in time to sweep it shut at her back.

Ron was already at the top steps, beaming at her. "Hermione! I've been looking for you since yesterday! Where've you been?"

"Here, mostly." She wrenched her hand off the doorknob and stepped toward him. "Ron, what-?"

He swept in and kissed her. It was tender, kind. Everything the best of them had ever been. Then, watching her with earnest, gleaming eyes, he presented her with a bouquet of roses. "'Mione, I love you. I want you to know that. I don't care if you're always busy and distracted right now, because I know you're going to succeed. And when you do, I'll still be here. Because I know my best shot at happiness is with you."

Speechless, Hermione gaped up at him for a long moment. For so long, she had pined for Ron. She had craved just this sort of profession of his undying devotion. She had wanted it when things had been at their worst, when that cursed locket had driven him to storm off from the tent, and she had been searching for it, any sign of it, since the second he came back.

Now she was finally receiving the promise she had waited so long for, and all she could think was how poor his choice of words had been.

"Your 'best shot at happiness'?" she asked, letting out a shuddering breath. She stepped back. He didn't close the gap again, but smiled back at her hopefully. Hermione let out a breath and looked down at the flowers he still held out to her. They had been charmed not to wilt before going in water, but the magic seemed to have faded. Some of the blossoms bobbed their split-open heads like weary old men. He really had been looking for her. It made her chest ache. "Oh, Ron. What about your exam?"

He blinked at her, then scoffed. "Oh. Yeah. Well, I failed that, didn't I? Had a bit more important stuff to deal with."

"Ronald! How could you be so irresponsible!"

His face turned pink, and his high spirits drained away. "I'm here pouring my heart out to you and you're worried about my grades," he said wonderingly, bitterly. It snapped Hermione's last nerve.

"You're throwing away your education to chase after something you've _imagined!_ Your 'best shot at happiness,' Ron! Not real happiness, but a chance for it! Someday!"

He watched her, his hurt writ large on his face. "That's not what I meant!"

"No. It's what you _said._ " It was agony to do this again, to watch his face color that way again. Hermione shook her head. "Maybe you should just go."

But Ron didn't move. His eyes shifted past her, to the door she had shut so quickly behind her. He looked back at her. "Is there someone else here?"

"No!" Her voice betrayed her, pitching high.

Fury crept into Ron's pain-stricken face. He reached around her for the latch. Hermione pushed him away, so he came back harder, shoving her aside. But she couldn't let him see. If he told Harry, everything could fall apart. She had to stop him. Her wand was in her hand. He was shouting. "Oi! You in there! You bloody coward, I'm gonna-"

" _Supercilius tritura!"_

Ron screamed as his eyebrows elongated and began beating at his face like the wings on a panicked bird. He staggered back toward the stairs and Hermione countered the curse before he could fall down them. As he blinked around and patted gingerly at his face, she settled between him and the door.

"Bloody hell, Hermione! What was that?"

"You need to leave."

He glared at her, more betrayed than ever. "I just want to know who the tosser is."

"Get out!"

Ron's eyes bulged and only then did Hermione realize she was pointing her wand at him again. But she didn't hold back. She chased him down the stairs with hexes that crackled in the air behind him and didn't stop until she heard the pop of Apparation, followed by the familiar pinch of the silent, empty house.

On the floor at the top of the stairs, the roses lay in a smashed heap.

.

* * *

.

All memory of hunger forgotten, Hermione returned to her room, locked and warded the door, and sat on the edge of Snape's bed. It had to be now. If she didn't go now, Ron might come back with Harry, and she could lose her chance entirely.

She tried not to think about the torn-open hole she felt in her heart, but it wouldn't be ignored. There was a way to deal with that, though.

Hermione drew a few calming breaths, then took hold of Snape's wrist and shut her eyes. She slipped beneath the surface of her own mind with ease, sinking into the metaphysical Inner Realm she had been visiting and constructing obsessively all week. When she opened her eyes, it was all as it was supposed to be.

Her mind stood before her, all the nuances and particularities that made Hermione Granger herself arranged and locked into an orderly form, a tidy metaphor in the flesh. It was a house, not so dissimilar to the house she had grown up in, cozy and brick with clean white trim. The door opened for her, and Hermione stepped inside.

It was waiting for her there in the foyer. A bouquet of crushed and wilting roses dumped on the floor, by all appearances harmless. Hermione, by now, knew better. From her pocket, produced by her own will, she pulled a pair of dragon hide gloves. With them, she picked up the bouquet and carried it at arm's length up to the attic, where she packed it in a cardboard box, penned DANGER on the side in large letters, and tucked it into a towering stack of memories like it.

The moment her gloved hands released it, she felt a knot of anxiety and sorrow release from her stomach.

 _Fortress of the Mind_ suggested that the repression of memories was often necessary for mental health, but that extreme caution should be used with the sort of stockpiling Hermione was currently practicing. The consequences could be quite devastating, should something go awry.

But that was neither here nor there, being as nothing was going to go awry. Besides, she felt more level-headed with some key memories tucked away, permanently prevented from jumping to the forefront of her thoughts.

Hermione marched back out of the house and took in the small yard. A laid-stone walkway cut through the bristling garden to an iron gate set into the hip-high stone wall. All of that was exactly as she had built it, and exactly as she had seen it in every practice session she had run up to now.

The world outside her mind was the same, as well. Beyond the wall stood the forest, dark and endless. Overhead, there was no sun; instead, a pale and unchanging sky cast everything in the same clear daylight. That sky was always gray, but it never rained.

The only difference from her previous visits was the trail that had appeared on the other side of the gate. It wound off into the shadows of the forest. Hermione had researched thoroughly, and knew what to expect, but she was still surprised by the certainty she felt. Through her physical body's contact, she felt herself tethered to another mind, off in the distance. This path, she knew, would lead her to Severus Snape.

No sense delaying. Hermione opened the iron gate and shut it behind her. From her pocket, she drew a matching iron key, which clicked into the lock and snapped the bolt in place with a deceptively soft _click_.

Then, she hurried down the path through the dark forest.

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* * *

.

All manner of creatures dwelled in the Inner Realm. Some just visited. Kneazles were known to do that, leaving metaphysical equivalents of fur and dead things on their keepers' mental doorsteps. Crookshanks had not done it that Hermione knew. In fact, she was beginning to think he had not inherited the ability to travel the Inner Realm at all. She couldn't find it in herself to be too sorry about that. It was bad enough he liked eviscerating small animals; it turned her stomach to think he might leave the memory of a good hunt for her to enjoy.

But walking through the deep shadows of the forest, Hermione rather wished he could have come with her. Things whispered in that darkness, offered her riches and vengeance to sate her heart's desires. She knew better than to step off the path - even without having read a hundred different warnings, she possessed _that_ much common sense - but the danger remained, pressed close in the still air.

The Hermione that was walking a path through a forest was not her physical body. It was her Self, the idea of Hermione that all her experiences had subconsciously compiled to create. Hermione's Self had the same great bushy hair and neglected cuticles and worn Muggle jeans as her physical body, but it was only a projection of who she thought she was. The Self was not a physical thing, but it could certainly be damaged or destroyed.

Or devoured. There were creatures in this forest that would entangle a stray Self in psychic traps and feed on its life force until nothing remained of the victim's soul. The result was much like a Dementor's Kiss, only without the inconvenience of leaving one's home.

Hermione stayed quite firmly on the path.

The journey was not long, but the forest had a way of seeming to stretch on forever. Even when she reached her destination, the feel of it clung to her robes like a heavy fog. By then, though, Hermione hardly noticed.

If Snape had read _Fortress of the Mind_ , then he had taken the title entirely to heart. Before her, looming high over the treetops, jutted the jagged spires of a castle. It bore a great many similarities to Hogwarts, the more she looked at it, but Hermione did not linger on the design.

The place was devastated. Walls caved in, entire towers brought down to ruins, deep furrows carved into solid stone. The outer gates were blasted off their hinges. The bridge that had spanned the canyon of a moat was reduced to a few stones clinging to either side of the gorge.

Hermione stared at the shattered remnants of a once great mind, horror washing through her. She had never imagined it could be so bad. No one could have survived an assault like this. It was simply impossible.

From the wreckage, a terrible roar resounded, like a hundred double-deckers being twisted into a little ball. Hermione's horror deepened, petrified her to the spot.

The attack was still going. Whatever had done this to Snape's mind, whatever form the magical neurotoxin had taken, it was still here, and it was still trying to obliterate what remained.

Which meant that, somehow, Snape was still here, too.

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* * *

.

Hermione considered running away for all of ten seconds.

This was not exactly what she had prepared for, but she supposed she should be able to adapt some of the techniques she had been studying to this new purpose. Of course, any interference on her part could potentially draw the dragon-

She stopped herself and asserted firmly, once again, that it was not a dragon. It was a poison, the magical component of the neurotoxin. She kept thinking the word "dragon" because the roar had sounded rather a lot like a dragon, but that was not what it was. Accepting in her mind that it was a dragon would only lend it the power of a dragon, and that would not do anyone any good at all. So it was a poison, a _poison_ , and that was that.

Hermione was a bit concerned that, the moment she made her presence known, the poison might travel the link back to her own mind. She was not certain whether a magical neurotoxin could attack a mind when it had not been injected into the accompanying body, but she did not want to be the person to make that discovery. The poison would have to be eliminated before it got any ideas.

With careful concentration, she rebuilt the bridge.

There were no wands in the Inner Realm. Rather, things were accomplished by force of will. Just as she had decided the poison was not a dragon, Hermione decided the bridge ought to be whole. Under her waiting eye, the fallen stones climbed by themselves back up from the bottom of the moat and reassemble into their proper form. It gave her a sense of satisfaction, that order, and once it was complete, it seemed to snap into place, a permanent fixture once more. The stone was whole.

The second it was finished, that terrible roar came again, followed by mighty crashing. Hermione steeled herself. The dragon- The _poison_ had sensed an interloper. It was coming. She stood in the middle of the rebuilt bridge and waited.

It climbed like a gargantuan lizard up one of the unbroken towers and launched itself on massive leathery wings. It looped wide in the distance to build up speed, but it was already watching Hermione with its huge yellow eyes. It squared off toward her and beat its wings harder, screaming that blood-chilling roar.

Hermione could see the gleam of claws and scales. She could see its teeth, each one long as her forearm. She could see every barb down its spine.

It did look quite a lot like a dragon. But it wasn't a dragon. It was a poison.

The poison surged closer, its serpentine body knifing through the air. It reached its forelegs out, spreading the massive grasping talons to snatch her.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. It was a poison - an old, played out poison. It had done its damage, and now it was little more than dust.

Dust.

The change was instantaneous. The dragon dissolved in midair into a cloud of noxious particles. Dust. Dust that still soaring unmistakably, malevolently toward Hermione.

She reached into her pocket and withdrew a plastic bottle. In three quick twists of her wrist, she had unscrewed the cap and withdrawn the little plastic wand. She sucked in a deep breath and, long and gentle, blew.

The bubble grew enormous, a shimmering iridescent shape bigger than a car that wobbled as it released from the wand. Hermione knew what it was going to do, she envisioned it perfectly in her head. Under her waiting eye, it doubled over itself around the cloud of dust, sweeping every particle into an inner bubble that was swiftly trapped inside the large outer bubble. The poison was contained.

Hermione reached up and caught the bubble in both hands and, with the lightest pressure, shrank it down to the size of a marble. The bubble was no longer soap, but glass, and Hermione easily plucked up a broken bit of stone, sank the marble containing the poison into the center of the rock, and tossed it off the bridge. The stone soared down into the moat and there vanished from sight.

Hermione brushed her hands together, satisfied with a job well done. Then she looked up at the decimated castle, and she realized just how much work lay ahead of her. Slowly, carefully, she walked through the open gates and took in the courtyard.

The great double doors hung crooked and ajar. Mixed amongst the bits of stone and wood and glass heaped all around, there were memories. A can of tuna. A letter ripped in half. A pressed and dried flower. A blood-colored bowling ball in a worn bag with a busted latch. A peppermint sweet.

Figuring this last was probably safe, Hermione reached down with her bare hand, and touched it.

 _In a dim, close room, a long-faced woman - Mother - glances at the doorway from which a low chatter of staticky television emits, then places a candy into his small hand. Unsmiling, she holds a finger to her lips. Then she walks through the door into the flickering light, and is gone. With tiny fingers that are already deft and quiet, he pulls the cellophane wrapper apart. His heart is in his throat as he places the sweet carefully in his mouth. It is Christmas Eve, and Severus Snape is not yet four years old._

Hermione staggered back, not from any pain or fear, but from the burning shame and sadness associated with the memory. It faded quickly, but the impression remained. He had been pleased to receive a sweet at the time, but the taste of peppermint was forever tainted.

Hermione peered around her, newly horrified. Everywhere she looked, a lifetime of memories lay tumbled together with the wreckage of an identity. How many of them were as intimately miserable as this one? How many were worse?

It would be positively ghoulish to go thumbing through them all. And yet, how else could one begin righting this mess?

Well, that part would just have to fall to Snape. Hermione would simply have to find his Self before she could proceed. That had been her plan from the beginning, but seeing the vastness of the castle had made the task doubly daunting. Furthermore, in a mind so thoroughly shattered, what kind of shape would the Self even be in?

The grim theories spinning through her head were more unnerving than helpful. Hermione drew a fortifying breath, then slipped through the gap in the crooked doors and into the shadowy ruins of Snape's mind.

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* * *

.

It quickly became evident that the likeness to Hogwarts was not merely superficial. More than a year since the final battle, and Hermione found herself walking again through her school in the wake of disaster. It was as if nothing had changed, as if the restoration she had faithfully followed in _The Daily Prophet_ had never taken place at all and all the pieces had just been abandoned where they fell. Except, thankfully, there were no bodies.

Still, it was an arresting sight, and Hermione stopped over and over, very nearly forgetting her true task. She could not help herself. Here and there, she tidied up. Fallen columns righted themselves. Blocks clunked back into place in their old walls. Doors popped up in a shower of debris and wiggled onto their hinges. Sconces scrabbled back up the walls and flared their torches back to life. Soon, Hermione walked steadily through a storm of restoration, frowning in intense focus.

The memories she left as they lay. Scattered or in heaps, she stepped carefully over them and continued on.

She walked the halls for hours, searching, but it was all the same. Empty. Every door hung open. Every room lay in chaos. Gryffindor Tower was simply gone. The corridor to the Headmaster's office was packed with twisted metal that Hermione eventually recognized as the workings of the Astronomy Tower.

Doors blasted across hallways. Doors smashed to kindling. Not a single one stood whole. All at once, Hermione understood why.

"Occlumency," she murmured, staring down a hall lined in gaping doorways. "Every door is a barrier he could shut to conceal information. That's how he was able to resist the magical effects of the poison for so long."

The doorways yawned silently back at her, and when she willed the doors back onto their hinges, their latches refused to hold. The force that had erected those barriers and held them firm against the greatest Legilimens in the world was no longer here.

As his defenses failed, Snape would have hidden his Self behind as many barriers as possible. He would be locked away deep… in the dungeons. Hermione hastened to the nearest stairwell, and scurried down from the upper floors. On the ground floor landing, peering into the darkness below, she hesitated.

It was a natural inclination to conceal one's basest urges in the lower reaches of the mind. Standing on the brink of the most private place in this mind, Hermione debated. It was true she meant well, but this was no less an invasion for that, and this method was ever so much more… _intimate_ than Legilimency. Whatever Snape kept in this part of his mind, he was unlikely to forgive her for snooping here.

But she wasn't just a wayward student poking her nose into her Professor's business out of curiosity. She was on a quest for the good of Wizarding Britain, and somewhere in this mess, there was information she needed which only Snape would be able to find. Besides, there was a chance he needed help. And wasn't it better to apologize later than to leave him to work it out on his own?

Hermione plunged down into the darkness.

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* * *

.

She was beginning to think she had been mistaken, that Snape's Self had been destroyed after all. He was nowhere to be found. The Potions classroom was in shambles and the Slytherin dormitories lay bizarrely exposed, just like every other corner of the lower level. Snape's office had been so crammed with tumbled debris and memories that she hadn't dared do more than poke her head through the open door.

But then, abruptly, she realized that Snape probably slept somewhere down here. As a Head of House, he would live not terribly far from the Slytherin common room. Likely, the entrance would be concealed by a statue or painting. She peered around the bare, bleak walls, frowning. Perhaps this was why the dragon had been making such a fuss. This was terribly frustrating.

Surely, there was a simpler way.

"Hello?" she called. Silence was her answer. It seemed colder, more oppressive than it had been before. Hermione raised her voice to be louder. "Hello? Professor Snape? Anyone?"

She walked the dungeons slowly, calling over and over and feeling increasingly hopeless. But then, suddenly cutting through the silence, a thin whisper reached her.

"Do I know you?"

Hermione spun around, but there was no one there. Only the office door, sprawled open against a tide of tumbled-out memories. "Yes," she said hastily, taking a cautious step closer to the door. "Hermione Granger, sir. I'm here to help you."

There was a pause, and Hermione held her breath. Finally, the whisper came again.

"How do I know you're not lying?"

It was coming from inside the office. Carefully, quietly, Hermione approached the door. "Well, I did get rid of the dragon. Poison. Whichever." There didn't appear to be anyone inside the room. The silence stretched. She frowned. There was something very peculiar about that voice; it didn't quite sound like Snape. It didn't quite sound like anyone. "Don't you remember me, sir?"

No answer came. Hermione willed the crumbled stone and glass on the floor to form a path into the room. She took one step inside.

"If you'll let me, I'd like to help you with all this."

"You can have all that," he said softly. "I'm afraid I don't want any of it."

The voice was not coming from a secret passage or a hidden room. It was coming from a large cabinet, standing firmly shut in the corner behind the desk. Though she had visited Snape's office before, she could not remember ever having seen that cabinet.

"I thought perhaps this was Hell," the voice said from the drawer at the bottom. "Because it never stopped. I felt every single crushing blow. And now it's stopped and you say you've gotten rid of… that _thing_ , and I suppose I believe you, but…"

Hermione made her way to the cabinet and very gently tugged the brass handles on the bottom drawer. It opened without any resistance at all.

The thing inside was no longer human. It wasn't even flesh. It was twisted and wispy, as if someone had wrung a ghost down to its essence. It lay curled around the memory it clutched in a skeletal hand; a spelled leaf-butterfly that slowly beat its leaf-wings.

Butterflies. Like the invisible ones Snape's eyes followed about the room. He had spent all this time escaping the pain of his crumbling mind in the only way he could; through a single good memory.

But now, his faded black eyes turned up to her. Hermione clicked her teeth shut.

"I think I would like to truly die now," Snape said.


	7. Chapter 7

AN: I swear I'm not *just* working on this story. I'm working on King's Pet, too, very slowly. It's been a depressiony few weeks. Thanks for reading and reviewing! You know it brightens my days!

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* * *

Hermione stared in horror at the wasted remains of Severus Snape's Self, too taken aback for a moment to speak at all. His countenance was blank and desolate, fixed on her with the gentlest beseeching. So little of him remained, and the long torment he had endured was not a thing he would shake off easily. In such a state, perhaps it would be kinder to just let him die.

Hermione was repelled by the very thought. Despair was not an emotion she made time for, as she did not see how it ever did anyone any good.

"But you've fought for so long! The worst of it is over, Professor. All you have to do now is heal."

She set her thoughts to the puzzle with relentless force. A Self was a construction based on the contents and order of one's memories. In a mind this demolished, of course the Self was withered. But the Self was a reactive and ever-changing thing. It could be rebuilt, as the mind could be rebuilt. The task merely required the will to try. So Hermione would have to inspire him to try. She would have to give him something to live for.

"The war is over," she said gently. "Voldemort is dead. You can live the rest of your life a free man."

"I was in a war?" he murmured, wonderingly.

Hermione gaped at him, then nodded in immediate comprehension. Of course he didn't remember. Not her, not the war, probably nothing beyond that memory still waving its wings in his hand. That was going to make her task much more difficult. How to pique the interest of someone so devoid of interests?

"You were. The entire Wizarding World knows you made our victory possible. Everyone knows you're a hero."

His eyes, for the first time, flashed. "Does Lily know?"

Hermione hesitated, but only for an instant. She would choose cruelty long before she would leave someone to this tragic end. She would gladly lie to him, if that was what it was going to take.

"Yes. Lily knows." She bit just the edge of her bottom lip. "She'd like to see you, when all this is put back."

It was wrong, and she knew it. He was clearly talking about Harry's mother, with whom he'd had some sort of history, but without access to his memories, he had no way of knowing she had died. Hermione knew with some certainty that this decision was going to come back to haunt her at some point. For now, though, the results were dramatic.

Snape blinked and, gingerly, sat up in the drawer. His eyes cast warily about the heaps of memories. "I don't want to remember most of these yet. But I think… maybe that one over there…"

He was pointing at a Wizard's Chess rook that sat on the top of a pile.

"Would you get it for me?"

"Of course." In a snap, Hermione pulled out her dragon hide gloves and retrieved the little black castle between two thickly padded fingers. Snape reached out a spindly arm, but drew back without touching it. Instead he only stared, and his form seemed to shiver.

"Would you look at it first? I- I'm afraid it will hurt me."

She hesitated, recalling the oppressive feel of the last memory she had touched. But she had offered to help, and if this was how he wanted her to help, then she could not very well decline. Hermione took off one glove and touched the carved crenellation.

 _The Dark Lord stares into his eyes like a cobra hypnotizing its prey. The intrusion into Severus's mind is like an ice pick, striking again and again, forcing its way deeper._

 _But unlike all those years ago, Severus is ready now. He feeds his Lord images of his loyalty, his enduring disgust for Muggles, his subtle elevation of the right Slytherins. He shows him hints of Lucius at his best, glimpses of Dumbledore weakening. He shows him, with genuine satisfaction, his disproportionate punishments of Harry Potter._

 _And all the while he hides so much more far out of reach. His mind is a vault. A series of nested vaults. The Dark Lord withdraws at last, and Severus collapses to his hands and knees, strained but victorious._

Hermione blinked out of the memory with an exultant grin on her face and a lancing headache, but quickly shook Snape's feelings away. She gazed at the spectral, featureless face that looked nothing like him, and bit her lip. He was so frail. Starting out on an emotional, complicated memory like the one she held now could easily dishearten him again. She set the rook aside.

"Maybe wait a bit on this one. There will probably be something a bit less… brutal around here somewhere."

And with that, she set about the memories in the office, searching for the right one to begin with.

.

* * *

.

The silver head snapped off a cane: _Lucius grips his shoulder and smiles a brittle, anxious smile. He won't stop thanking him for this secret audience and it makes Severus ill because he had always believed Lucius was above begging, above cowering - frankly, above_ him _. To see him this way now, stripped of dignity and grandeur, makes him feel perversely strong and yet cheated, as if he had always been the superior man, but he was only realizing it now that the knowledge did him no good._

 _"It is my greatest fear," Lucius whispers, "that Narcissa means to attempt an escape the moment she has Draco-"_

 _"Surely you know better by now than to speak such a thing aloud."_

A teacup with a stain at the bottom: _He sits in the Headmaster's chair in the Great Hall, and McGonagall refuses to sit next to him. She refuses to look at him. She is under inquiry and working on probation until the Carrows find a plausible excuse to kill her. She does not know that he has been subtly impeding their progress. She does not know a lot of things, and Severus wishes for a moment that he could tell her, because for all that she is an insufferable blowhard, she is a respectable witch and he is a loathsome murdering imposter sitting in her chair._

A bit of a brass Goblin lock mechanism: _He meets a particular Gringotts employee in a particular alley at a pre-determined hour. The Goblin holds a sword that looks very much like the Sword of Gryffindor, but is not. For a long moment, neither speak while the Goblin watches him with glittering eyes. "Ironic, I guess. If I didn't respect him so much, I'd disregard his instructions and tear your head off. But then, wouldn't feel so anxious to kill you if I didn't respect him so much. So. Real pickle for me."_

 _"An absolute quandary," Severus sneers. He snatches the sword and Disapparates._

An ice-crusted bit of leaves: _He sends his Patronus with the real sword using a bit of magic he and the old man had designed together for just this purpose. As he speaks the incantation, he is thinking of that moment under the tree, that one perfect moment when he realized what it was to have a friend, before things became so shameful and complicated._

Hermione snapped out of the memory as a wave of melancholy crashed over her. It took a moment for her head to clear, and she rubbed her eyes as she waited. The Patronus that had led Harry to the Sword of Gryffindor? That had been Snape? It was so disorienting, experiencing all these moments, these impressions that shifted her perceptions of the man in subtle, uncomfortable ways. With each one, she felt more assured of the righteousness of her decision to help him. Someone should have done so long before now. The man had made sacrifices. His work had been lonely and thankless. He had suffered so long before Voldemort had killed him.

"You see, now," Snape's Self whispered behind her. "They are all terrible, sad memories. They taint the very air in this room…"

"No, that's not right." She straightened, frowning around the chaos. There was a pattern here, if she could just work it out. "I mean, yes. They're quite sad. But they're important. These are moments when you were very brave."

Abruptly, it clicked into place.

"These are the memories you absolutely had to keep hidden from Voldemort. That's why they're here, in the most remote, difficult-to-reach place." Hermione looked back at Snape, and smiled. "We just need to look somewhere else for a little lighter fare. Can you come with me?"

"I suppose."

Hermione watched him scrabble out of the drawer and onto the path of debris she had made. He seemed at once insubstantial and unbearably heavy, what remained of his shoulders sagging and the ghostly shapes of his feet shuffling along.

She could not carry him, much as she wished to ease his way. Touching another person's Self was strongly discouraged in _Walking the Inner Ways_ , because it could result in unpredictable and often lingering effects. One wizard had unthinkingly petted his Kneazle in the Inner Realm only to wake up later with a deep hunger for rodent flesh.

So Hermione led Snape back to the hallway, and then up to the ground floor, where she began searching again for a memory that could serve. There was less rubble here - thanks to her own previous efforts - and in the Entrance Hall, she came upon something promising. The Sorting Hat, laying flattened and dusty on the floor. She bent down and touched it.

 _His name is called and he sits on the stool. When the hat descends on his head, he is already at war in himself. Lily went to Gryffindor! He told her over and over that Slytherin is the best house, but those tossers on the train had won her over with their stupid good looks and easy charm. They ruined everything, and he is going to pay them back if it's the last thing he-_

 _"Alright, alright, so you are, you're SLYTHERIN!"_

 _The hat lifts away and Severus goes to sit at his new house table, where a young Lucius welcomes him with a pat on the back. Despite his lingering upset over Lily, he's filled with a warmth he has rarely felt. He's part of something now. He belongs._

"This one," she said at once. She picked up the Sorting Hat and held it out for him. "Try this one."

Snape hesitated, rolling the stem of the leaf-butterfly between his fingers. Finally, he reached out and touched just the frayed edge of the brim.

Before Hermione's eyes, his form changed, became more solid. His eyes regained a measure of their cunning, and he grew into the rough estimate of an eleven-year-old in Hogwarts robes, complete with Slytherin tie. His face still did not look quite like Snape, but it was closer than it had been. He peered up at Hermione with narrowed eyes, and abruptly plucked the memory out of her hand.

"Do I know you?"

"You mean to say you've already forgotten me?" she asked, stunned. But of course he had forgotten. Without any order in his current memories, how was he supposed to form and access new ones? Still clutching the hat and the leaf-butterfly, he stared at her warily and took a step back. Hermione held up a hand to stop him and shook her head. "Sorry, Professor. I just didn't realize how quickly the change would happen."

"What change? I'm not a professor."

"Nevermind that. I'm helping you find… some things." She waved loosely around the objects scattered through the Entrance Hall and smiled. Perhaps this would turn out to make the situation easier. Maybe he would simply forget she had seen him in such a vulnerable state. Maybe he would forget that she had lied. "I'll pick out a few more to help you get started."

He regarded her for a moment longer, then nodded. Hermione, with a final reassuring smile, dove right in.

.

* * *

.

An old bag of gobstones: _His mother says she used to play, and she will teach him sometime, but she never does. Severus loses interest in them and settles for reading the books she keeps hidden away in the same corner of her closet. He reads them over and over, because there are only a few of them and nothing much else to do in the desolate house. And besides, they make him think that maybe even a skinny little boy could stop a monster in its tracks. One of the books is titled_ Shades of Grey, Volume I; Cruel Curses. _In the front, the name Eileen Prince is inscribed._

A tatty stuffed bear: _He is hiding under his bed while his father's enormous footsteps thunder through the house. His mother's voice, caught between a wail and a roar. He keeps a few toys in a tin cracker box under the bed so he can have something to do with his hands until its over._

A smashed bit of birthday cake: _Lily's thirteenth birthday party. Petunia is there, being a real Muggle. Severus uses a jinx his new friend Avery taught him to make her voice come out as a bird song. Lily wants to be mad about it, but he can tell she's relieved she doesn't have to listen to Petunia for a while._

A bottle of cold butterbeer: _Avery and Mulciber invite him along to the Shrieking Shack during the first Hogsmead visit of fifth year. They see that stuck-up Ravenclaw Angela Praetor holding hands with Dustin Dumas on the path and, since Dustin ratted the two of them out for cheating on their Transfiguration homework last week, they decide to make it a really special date. They make Angela watch as Avery hits him with curses until his face is scrunched up and whiskery and a tail bursts through the back of his pants. Severus tells her he'll undo the curses if she kisses Dustin's hideous snitching rat mouth. She cries as she does it, and its hard to tell with his face like that, but it looks like Dustin cries, too. It's pathetic, so Severus shrugs and says he's forgotten the counter-curse, which he hasn't. They snivel and bolt back to town. It's hilarious._

Hermione jerked out of the memory full of vicious gratification, and immediately felt sick. What a horrid thing to do! She spun around to glare at Snape where he was trying to carry an armload of memories all at once. He looked more and more real, despite still being a boy. His face was once more dominated by that huge hooked nose and a sullen frown. He still wouldn't pick up new memories on his own, but he took what she handed him - usually with a suspicious look on his face.

It was grueling, this work. It was hard to watch his father roll through his childhood like a storm and feel his terror and then hand that memory to a little kid to add to his collection. And this, this act of early cruelty…

Snape glanced at the cold butterbeer and then looked up at her. He held out his hand.

"Maybe wait on this one, too," she sighed, and tossed the butterbeer across the Entrance Hall. Snape's eyes followed the bottle, then turned back up to her. Hermione felt unaccountably tired. It occurred to her that her physical body was still sitting on Snape's bedside at some probably-obscene hour in the morning. "How would you like to take a break?"

"You can if you want," he said sourly. "I feel…"

He tipped his head to one side and abruptly walked through the wide double doors into the Great Hall. Hermione stood in the doorway and watched him walk the long aisles between the tables, placing the items from his hands in specific places. The floor was scattered with a thousand forks and plates and bowls. And food. Curious, she touched a loose spoon with a dab of red on it.

 _Tomato soup, the third day of a week-long liquids-only diet Severus had to endure following an especially devious hex from Black that had made all his teeth fall out. His teeth were regrowing, but any disruption would make them come in crookeder than before._

Hermione straightened and watched Snape shuffle around. He hesitantly picked up a plate and, after a long pause, crossed the entire room to put it where it belonged. This room was enormous, and full of scattered memories. It would take him forever to go through. Perhaps she could go back to her own mind and rest for a few hours.

Suddenly, a thread tugged hard against her, strumming from some far off point.

 _Hermione,_ it called. _Please come out and talk to me._

Instinctively, she let the thread detach her from where she stood. It reeled her in like a tape measure, whipping her out of the castle, over the bridge, down the path, and through the gate into her own mind with a snap.

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* * *

.

The impact of returning to herself sent Hermione to the floor in a heap. Her head spun wildly as she struggled to get her bearings.

"Hermione, please?" Harry's voice came muffled through the door. It sounded like his forehead was against the wood. "Please don't ignore me."

"Mm-not," she slurred. It took a moment to recall how her mouth worked. "I'm not ignoring you, Harry. I was asleep."

There was a long pause, followed by Harry awkwardly clearing his throat. "Right. Busy night for you, I guess. Meet me downstairs?"

Abruptly, Hermione realized that full daylight was pouring through the windows. Her head was pounding and her stomach twisted savagely. She had spent the entire night in Snape's mind without any food or proper sleep.

"Right! Coming," she said, too brightly.

Harry grumbled something and went down. As soon as he was on the lower level, Hermione scrambled to her feet, swayed dizzily on her way to the door, and clumsily unlocked her wards.

She found Harry setting out tea and toast on the table. He shot her an assessing glance, taking in her jeans and jumper from the night before and the tired lines on her face.

"Blimey, Hermione. What'd he do to you?"

"Who?"

"Whatever tosspot you've got warded in your room like an Unspeakable."

It took her a long moment to access the memory of what had happened last night - with Ron and the roses. Clearly, he'd reported back to Harry. Awkwardly gripping the doorframe with one hand, she rubbed her aching head with the other.

She very nearly reassured him. It wasn't what he and Ron were thinking; this was just a part of her work, a major breakthrough actually, and there was no reason to worry further about it.

Only, without more details, Harry _would_ worry further about it. It was a pattern with him. He would develop suspicions. Then he would investigate and brood about it for a long time before finally, very probably at the worst possible time, a grand epiphany would sweep him up - and her along with him - into some wildly unpredictable scene.

Or, she could simply not correct him.

"Honestly, Harry," she said, peering down at her trainers, "you don't want to know."

"You're right. I don't. I'm just trying to understand why you're doing this to Ron."

"Why _I_ -! I am not doing anything _to_ Ron! We split up. He's the one who decided to show up here unannounced."

"Yeah. To tell you how much he loves you. Only he comes in to find you shacked up with some other bloke."

Hermione felt sick all over again, as bad as she had felt last night. Worse. It made her squirm inside, made her dig her fingers deep in her hair. Her heart beat a tattoo in her throat. "I can't do this! I can't spend my entire life thinking about how Ron feels! He's had years to tell me how much he loves me, and he only decided to do it when I finally told him I needed space!"

"So that's it, is it?" Harry asked in a suddenly quiet voice. "You can't be bothered with your friends' feelings? Fine." He grabbed his cloak off the back of a chair and headed for the Floo. Inside the kitchen he stopped and looked back at her. "Maybe it's time you started looking for a new place to live, Hermione. I think this house is rubbing off on you."

With a burst of green flames, Harry was gone. Hermione stared down at the tea and toast. Once again, she felt too miserable to eat.

But she needed her strength, now more than ever. She had to get Snape restored as quickly as possible, especially with the impending eviction now hanging over her head. She was also probably going to have to find a new job. Yesterday she had taken a sick day. Today, she had simply failed to show up.

The worries and fears and anxieties echoed off each other and grew into more daunting forms. Hurriedly, Hermione sat down at the table and shut her eyes. She sank easily into the Inner Realm and packed these latest memories into boxes, and packed those boxes into the darkest corner of her mental attic.

When she opened her eyes again, she felt steady enough to eat a spot of breakfast.


End file.
